City eyes taking in other fire districts
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 4, 2014 1:46 PM
Goldsboro Fire Chief Gary Whaley presented a plan for the city fire department to absorb several surrounding county fire departments at Monday night's City Council work session.
Service areas that would be taken over by the city if the merger takes place include Pinewood, Arrington, Elroy, Mar-Mac, New Hope, Rosewood and Belfast.
Council members bristled briefly at the proposed plan for one reason -- under the plan, county residents would pay lower fire taxes than residents inside the city limits. Councilman Charles Williams said that fact alone would draw the ire of city residents.
About 12.5 percent of Goldsboro residents' property taxes go toward funding fire services, whereas tax rates for the departments that would be absorbed range from 5 to 7 percent.
Pinewood's fire department is set to shut its doors Dec. 1. No matter what, action must be taken by then, Whaley said.
When fires are reported in these areas, the GFD already responds for mutual aid but gets no revenue from doing so, he said.
In taking over the surrounding departments, Goldsboro would collect an additional $22,121 in fire taxes for 2014-15, and would collect $37,922 in the following years.
City Manager Scott Stevens said the tax rate would be evened out in the coming years by slowly raising the fire tax for the aforementioned districts to bring them closer to the city rate.
"I have reservations about having eight different fire taxes, but merging does make sense in order to close up holes in fire response coverage," Stevens said.
Goldsboro's Fire Department would bear the load of about 50 additional calls per year by taking over the departments, Whaley said.
"What I don't like is that we would be supplementing fire coverage with the city's resources," Council member Chuck Allen said.
When Pinewood shuts down, Whaley said the county would sell the department's equipment and Pinewood's EMS would take over the building.
Council members said they would only approve a merger if a clause is added to allow a one-year trial run of the takeover, giving the city a chance to back out if it doesn't work.
"If Pinewood calls on Dec. 2, they're going to call us for mutual aid and we're going to respond anyway," Whaley said. "We might as well get something from it."
The proposed merger calls for a 15-year agreement among the departments, and a clause that allows the GFD to back out at any time after providing one year's advance notice.
Mayor Al King was concerned about the increased burden on the city department.
"What we have to look at is if a fire is happening out in the county that you guys respond to and then another one happens within the city," King said. "Eventually that's going to happen and we need to make sure that we have all the eventualities covered before we move forward with this."
Regardless, the fire department will continue to respond to calls as they come in, including calls in the Pinewood area after that fire department shuts its doors.
"We don't want a house to burn down because politics got in the way," Allen said.
Further action will be taken on the merger at the next City Council meeting on Nov. 17.