December 17, 2003

Firefighters struggle to provide services with strained budgets

       When new homes and businesses are built in White River Township, firefighters typically have to sign off on the safety of the building.  Nobody ever asks them if they have enough firefighters to rush to the scene, rescue victims and douse the blaze if the building ever were to catch on fire.  The White River Township Fire Department is nearing a crisis situation, Division Chief Eric Brown said, because state law prevents the department from hiring new firefighters to keep up with the growth of the area it serves.  While the fire protection district could borrow enough money to buy a new fire truck and build a new station, the way property taxes are raised and distributed prevents the department from being able to to have enough money to pay the utility bills for that new station or the salary of a firefighter to operate the equipment.  The struggle is similar to that of growing school districts.  Clark-Pleasant, for example, has no say in whether thousands of additional school children enroll when their families move into a new subdivision south and east of Greenwood.  While the corporation typically can borrow enough money to build new schools to house the students, it struggles to have the money to pay salaries for more teachers.  The solution for the fire department is on it has been pursuing for years:  Get the state’s permission to raise property taxes beyond the amount set by a government formula.  Permission from the state means property tax bills for homes and businesses in fire protection district would increase.  Staffing at the 72-firefighter department is significantly below that of comparable departments across the state, said Steve Dyson, an accountant with C.L. Coonrod & Co., the Indianapolis accounting firm that manages the department’s finances.  The fire protection district is the largest in the state based on population served.  Four full-time firefighters and eight part-timers are divided among three stations for each shift every day, Fire Chief Mike Tibbetts said.  The fire department contracts with the township’s volunteer corporation to pay part-time firefighters and paramedics $8 to $10 per hour to wait on standby at the fire stations. “If you pick up the phone and call, you are guaranteed that you’re not going to wait 15 to 20 minutes for someone to drive to the station, pick up a piece of apparatus and go,” Tibbetts said.  Tibbetts is worried that if the department continues at the below-minimum staffing, disaster could strike.  For example, when responding to an automobile accident with injured people, eight firefighters and paramedics should respond.  But in White River Township, only five or six emergency workers are sent to the scene.  Eighteen firefighters should respond to a blaze, but typically only 12 are available.  “If I show up with 12 people, how am I going to rescue somebody and put the fire out at the same time?” Tibbetts said.  “That’s never going to happen.”  When that happens, the fire department calls for help from a neighboring fire department, but it takes longer for them to arrive.  “That’s just a delayed response,” Tibbetts said.  “That’s just going to jump up and bite us real soon.”  He worries about the upcoming dense population within the new apartment buildings on State Road 135.  That growth is only heading further south.  Tibbetts said the department needs to raise enough taxes to hire 30 more firefighters in the next 10 years.  He can justify that need.  The amount of emergency calls the department responds to is increasing at a rate of 20 percent per year.  Currently, the firefighters respond to about 1,800 calls per year.  “We just steadily keep going up and up and up,” Tibbetts said.  Tibbetts said he’s tried to encourage property taxpayers in the area to get informed about the public safety need.  When asking the state to raise property taxes, the department sent letters to every homeowners association and business owner in the area.  The department asked the state to raise about $1.4 million more in property taxes a year ago, but the state gave permission for only an extra $225,000.  The long-term fix, Tibbetts said, is a change in the complicated state laws that guide how local fire protection districts collect property taxes.  The Fire department cites several reasons for needing more property tax money.  The fact that the township is growing, and the rate of that growth exceeds that of typical across the state, accounts for most of the $1.7 million request.  If granted, property tax payers would pay about 10 cents more per $100 of assessed valuation.  An Advisory board has approved the request, and firefighters are waiting on final approval from the state tax commissioner.  That answer should some within one month, Dyson said.  Of the 57 fire protection districts in the state, seven are located in Johnson County.  With the county’s rapid growth rate, the other districts should prepare for the same.  “Eventually, we are going to run out of room and land for people to build on,” Tibbetts said.  “It’s going to go on down to Bargersville, and they are going to be in just the same boat as we are.”  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)

 

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