Volunteer Fire Departments Perplex Leake
It was equal parts amazing and amusing watching Commissioner Vilma Leake in action Tuesday night, but mostly it was flat-out scary. At issue was a vote by the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners to approve a change in the structure of the Fire Commission and receive an update on the county’s fire service assessment. The following is fairly close to a verbatim discussion of what ensued when Leake jumped into the mix:
“Why are they called volunteer if they don’t get paid?” Leake asked.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat the question, please,” replied an understandably confused Fire Marshal Mark Auten.
“Why are you called volunteer firefighters?” Leake asked.
“We have a number of firefighters in the county that volunteer their time to conduct this service,” Auten ventured.
“But why are you called volunteer and you’re asking for funding?” Leake pressed. “Do we have another agency that’s called firefighters under the auspices of the county?”
At which point County Manager Harry Jones tried to provide some clarification, explaining that the county’s funding helped offset VFD expenses for equipment, fuel, fire trucks and maintenance.
“Does this conflict with our own fire department?” Leake asked.
“The county does not have one,” said Commissioners Chairman Jennifer Roberts.
“We don’t have a fire department?” Leake asked.
“The city has one,” Roberts said.
“The city has one,” Leake said. “So the county is supporting the volunteers and the city is supporting its own fire department.”
“Correct,” Roberts said. “In the city limits of Charlotte they have a fully funded fire department.”
“I’m just still not clear,” Leake said.
Alrighty then. Let’s pause for a moment to consider the implications of that exchange. It is distressing, stupefying, harrowing (insert adjective of choice here) that a commissioner in charge of a billion-dollar budget is apparently clueless that the county doesn’t have its own fire department.
Volunteer fire departments provide service for unincorporated areas of the county and fill in service gaps for towns that don’t have their own departments. The cost of helping to fund those VFDs runs the county about $1.8 million a year. Without the county’s financial assistance most of the VFDs couldn’t operate, in which case the county would have to pay the city to provide fire-protection service, at a higher cost, for the unincorporated areas and some towns.
The county has struggled with that dynamic for years and has consistently encouraged the smaller towns to form their own fire departments. That encouragement should be more aggressive, said Commissioner Bill James, whose district includes the town of Mint Hill, which has a volunteer force similar to Pineville, Huntersville, and Davidson.
“Some towns don’t want to create a fire department because it’s such a big budget item,” James said. “They’re living off the county’s largess and we don’t push them. The end goal should be we’re out of the fire department business.”
The fire services assessment that commissioners received as information Tuesday night appears headed in that direction, with a long-term recommendation that either separate tax districts be established to support the 17 volunteer departments, or that they be merged with existing town departments or departments that towns currently without are being encouraged to form.
Should be interesting to watch the wheels spin as Leake tries to wrap her head around that volunteer evolution.
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