The Decatur Volunteer Fire Department may soon have its pumper truck back in action after the Board of Aldermen voted Monday to cover the cost of repairs on the county owned truck.
Mayor David Marshall told the board he had been researching the town’s approach to fire trucks after meeting with the Newton County Board of Supervisors. During his research, he said he found $56,000 in the town’s fire protection fund which could be used to pay the estimated $16,500 to repair the damaged truck.
“In the process of looking at our money, we had money in our fire protection account,” he said. “We had $100,000 in our fire rebate account that we were going to use on the new truck. Then, we had $56,000 in our fire protection account that we could spend on anything.”
Marshall said some of that money was intended to go toward the new custom-built pumper ordered by the Decatur Volunteer Fire Department earlier this year. However, he said the need to have a working pumper was the more pressing issue.
Although the damaged truck is owned by the county, not the Town of Decatur, Marshall said he felt the town should cover the cost of repairs.
“The way I see it is, if I borrowed someone’s tractor for a year, collecting money on it for working with it and then it broke, I wouldn’t go back to them and say, ‘hey, I’ve been using your tractor, but now it’s broken and needs to be fixed,’” he said. “I really feel that we should bite the bullet and go ahead and get the fire truck repaired.”
The interlocal agreement for fire protection Newton County holds with municipalities, including Decatur, doesn’t specifically state who is responsible for repairs, but Marshall said it has always been understood the fire departments, or their respective municipalities, would maintain the county-owned trucks.
The Newton County Board of Supervisors has discussed establishing a fund to assist the county’s 10 fire departments with the expense of repairs, but no action has been taken yet. Marshall said paying for the repairs would get the truck back in service and take some of the pressure of the county to act quickly.
“They are trying to come up with an idea or plan so, if there’s ever a situation like this again, that there’s an account that can be pulled for an emergency repair,” he said.
Another reason to repair the truck, Marshall said, the truck makes money for the town. Since taking possession of the 2008 truck, the Town of Decatur has received about $15,000 in fire insurance rebate money for having the county-owned vehicle.
The Board of Aldermen agreed with Marshall’s recommendation to pay the repair bill and get the fire truck back in service.
Going forward, Marshall said he hoped the Newton County Board of Supervisors would consider signing fire trucks over the fire departments instead of holding onto the titles. That would be a huge benefit to the town as it would have two Class-A pumpers to call upon if needed.
