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Tuesday evening two Wake County fire
officials agreed to participate with the
Town of Wake Forest and the Wake Forest
Fire Department to plan and coordinate
how to meet future fire-fighting and
protection needs in and around the town.
The officials did not agree
to fund a specific amount or percentage
of the fire department’s operating
budget, and a Wake County Fire
Commission has turned down the
department’s request for a 3,000-gallon
pumper tanker for blazes in the rural
area, rescinded an offer for a
2,000-gallon replacement tanker and told
the department not to ask for anything
until next year.
At the end of the meeting,
Wake Forest Fire Chief Jerry Swift said
the town commissioners addressed all the
questions he would have asked. “Our plan
is based on the municipality’s
interests, what’s best for the town of
Wake Forest. I just don’t think we fit
into the Wake County plan because of the
area of coverage.”
Swift noted they did not get
the tanker for the rural area where
there have been disastrous fires in
three homes. The request had to be
approved by the appointed Fire
Commission. “. . . those guys view me as
a newcomer to Wake County.”
Raymond Echevarria, director
of the county’s fire/rescue division,
and John Rukavina, director of the
Public Safety Department, explained that
the county commissioners have set a goal
of funding four fighters at each of the
35 fire stations across the county.
“Our biggest priority is to
improve staffing,” Echevarria said. Some
of the stations “don’t have any people
in them at night.”
Mayor Vivian Jones asked
about the county’s long-term plan for
the Wake Forest department, and
Echevarria said the existing fleet is on
a replacement schedule. “Next year a
pumper/tanker is due for replacement. Do
we replace it or not?”
The Wakette fire district –
the department’s rural area – has a tax
value of $545 million with a tax rate of
10 cents for every $100 in value or
$545,425 each year. “Does the Wake
Forest Fire Department get that much
money?” Jones asked. The year the county
is contributing $336,000 to the
department.
“It’s based on the budget
recommendations,” Echevarria said.
Commissioner Frank Drake
said the truck replacement schedule
would only maintain the status quo while
there is tremendous growth in the area.
“How do your plans anticipate the growth
in the need?”
This was where Echevarria
talked about improving staffing. “We are
working to lay out what the impact of
the growth countywide is.”
Commissioner Margaret
Stinnett said it sounded as though there
is not a plan in place.
“It is a consensus process”
with the county, the towns and the fire
departments, Echevarria said.
He and Rukavina said the
county has changed the way fire
departments are funded from the old 21
fire tax districts with different tax
rates to a uniform 10-cent fire tax
throughout the county with 7.75 cents
supporting operating expenses and 2.25
cents spent on capital costs. The
budgeting system is now expenditure
driven – how much does it cost?
For most departments,
Echevarria said, “we look at the number
of calls they run in the county and the
number in the city.” That percentage
helps determine how much the county
contributes to the department’s
operating budget.
In Wake Forest, however,
Rukavina said, “The fire department
receives a fixed amount” from the town.
The town sets aside 11 cents of the
55-cent tax rate for the department.
Morrisville’s fire department budget, he
said, is divided by the town and county
areas.
Also, the county is
beginning a long-range plan for building
new fire stations that could be, as the
county libraries are, built with bond
money. To date, the county has only
planned for stations a year or two in
advance on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Rukavina and Echevarria
talked about the increasing
disappearance of volunteer firefighters
and the increase in demand for service.
“We are becoming the first call for
anything, in the public’s eye,”
Echevarria said. “We will transition
from predominantly volunteer to four
career firefighters at every station.”
If there is not a plan for
the growth and where to put new fire
stations, “but we feel we need to act
sooner,” Commissioner David Camacho
asked, “How do we assure we are not
duplicating your efforts?”
Drake said it seemed to him
that “if we spend more, you spend less.”
“Is it more of a priority of
the county to fund a minimum level of
service than to provide excellent
service in different areas?” Camacho
asked. He said it seemed most of the
county money has “gone more toward
upping to a bare minimum than to
exceptional service.”
“We’ve defined the level of
service that we will support,” Rukavina
said. “We have a service level that the
board of commissioners has decided on.”
Growth in different areas could change
the formula for funding.
“I think the point they’re
trying to make,” Town Manager Mark
Williams said, “and its true with the
schools as well, is that the county is
not at a point where they have enough
funds to meet their service goals.
There’s not enough revenue for the
entire county.”
The question is, Echevarria
said, how much it will cost to get to
their service level goal.
Stinnett said it was hard
for her to tell someone in a
half-million-plus home that their level
of fire service is going to be minimal
because “Wake County says that’s it.”
Rukavina said the county’s
goal “is pretty close to the recommended
standards for fire service.” The goal is
four fighters on the first truck there
within five minutes in an urban area,
seven minutes in a suburban area and
nine minutes in a rural area. For a
structure fire there should be a total
of 16 firefighters who will all arrive
within 13 minutes in an urban area, 15
minutes in a suburban and 17 minutes in
a rural area.
Echevarria said most of Wake
County is rural with a population of
1,000 people or less in a square mile. |
