Chiefs of Newton County’s 10 fire departments are offering a compromise to the rural fire protection agreement between the county Board of Supervisors and the fire departments. The chiefs had previously declined to sign the annual agreement after supervisors inserted new language that would make the fire departments solely responsible for maintenance costs.
In a Board of Supervisors meeting Thursday, Fire Coordinator Brian Taylor told the board he met with the chiefs to discuss the agreement and hear their proposal.
“They want to set $2,000 aside each year to go into a fund for heavy maintenance on fire trucks off of the tax millage money,” he said. “They would come up with $2,000 a year and you guys would come up with $2,000 to be set aside strictly for heavy maintenance on fire trucks.”
Taylor previously told the board fire departments in Newton County receive about $6,000 in tax millage money, which is used to purchase fuel, change oil and buy tires for fire trucks. While $6,000 is enough for those routine expenses, it would not be enough for a large scale expense should a fire truck crash or have a part break.
By setting aside $4,000 each year, he said the fire departments hope to grow a fund which could be tapped to cover unexpected large-scale expenses.
That would give us $4,000 a year and that number would continue to grow,” he said.
Under the chiefs’ plan, individual departments would be responsible for repair and maintenance costs up to $3,000. For heavy maintenance, departments would pay $3,000 and the rest of the cost could be drawn from the fund.
“The department would have to spend $3,000 to access the fund,” he said. “If it’s over $3,000, the remainder would come from the fund.”
In other fire business, Taylor said he had been talking with water associations in Newton County about the possibility of adding a fire service fee to customers’ bills. Residents would have the ability to opt out of paying the fee, but any money collected would go directly to the fire departments.
“The water associations said they would be glad to add this as an option, the only thing they would ask the board to do before they added this on there would be to pass an ordinance asking them to withhold that,” he said.
Lauderdale and Neshoba counties already have agreements in place with their water associations and it works well, Taylor said.
“It’s another possible way of funding these fire departments,” he said.
Supervisor Joe Alexander, who serves on Duffee Fire Department, said his department is already doing this with their local water association. The funds, he said, make a difference.
“If those other departments do it, it helps,” he said.
Although the water associations are on board, Taylor said implementing the fee county-wide would be slightly complicated due to Newton County having close to a dozen different water associations. Under normal circumstances, a water association collects the fee and writes a check directly to the fire department. In Newton County, however, that could result in some departments being short changed.
Should the board want to move forward with the fire protection fee, Taylor said his recommendation would be to have a central account to collect the money and have the county divide it equally among the departments.
No action was taken on either the rural fire protection agreement or the fire protection fee. The board is scheduled to meet again at 10 a.m. April 6, 2020.
