Newton Grove Chief addresses citizen fire tax concerns

NEWTON GROVE — Discussion over the increase to the fire tax being proposed by the fire department was revisited during Monday night’s town board meeting.

Newton Grove Fire and Rescue Chief Daniel Warwick came forward during the meeting to address concerns he’d received from members of the town, who voiced confusion over the potential fire tax increase.

“I just want to clear today as I had a couple of phone calls and concerns from citizens since the last meeting,” Warwick said. “Yes, we are proposing a fire tax increase, but I’m not proposing an 8-cent fire tax on Newton Grove citizens, I don’t expect your taxes to go up 8 cent at one time.”

Warwick highlighted that while they are receiving money from the town currently there’s discrepancy in the funding they’re allotted.

“Right now we are receiving money from the town of Newton Grove, but per our tax base versus our tax rate, it doesn’t match up,” he said. “So yes, we have to do some work with the town to come to an agreement on the amount of funds that are going to be paid to the fire department.”

Per the proposal Warwick presented during February’s meeting, Newton Grove FD is requesting from county commissioners a 2-cent per $100 valuation increase.

“Newton Grove Fire and Rescue has a service district within Sampson County that is taxed currently at 6 cents per $100 tax valuation,” Warwick said at the February meeting. “We feel the revenue for our service district within the town of Newton Grove should be based on the same tax rate as our Sampson County Service District (8 cent per $100).”

“Right now we’re at 6-cent tax, and we’re requesting a 2-cent increase, which would put us at the 8 cent per $100 evaluation, that’ll be district-wide,” he added.

As he did in last month’s meeting, Warwick reiterated the fire department’s reasoning for desiring the increase was about fairness.

“Like I said before, I don’t think it’s fair for our county citizens, that say, own a 2,100-square foot house, to have to pay a 6- or 8-cent fire tax,” he said. “Then we’ve got a manufacturing facility or a Food Lion that’s not paying the fire tax, but in reality, they’re paying the town tax, which in turn, some of that comes back to the fire department.

“So we think it’s not fair to be paying pennies on the dollar, versus what our county folks are paying,” he added. “Especially when there’s a lot more liabilities in town for the fire department, with the commercial buildings, there’s a lot more work involved in them.”

Also of note, during Warwick’s presentation, it was highlighted that currently, Newton Grove receives funding from both the town and the county. While true, the town itself does not impose an actual “fire tax.” Instead, the county collects a fire tax from properties outside the town limits, while the town allocates general tax revenue to support the fire department.

“If I understand after an earlier conversation with Mr. Mayor (Craig Warren) and legal, I believe that the town cannot impose a fire tax in the city limits of Newton Grove,” Warwick said. “They don’t have an authority to do that, so we’re going to find some type of agreement between now and whenever to try and come up with that. However, I do have the budget message for this year, and it does say in the first paragraph, that the town does collect 6 cent per $100 tax. So we might need to look at that and also the contract between the town and the fire department.”

Town Attorney Lew Starling shed more light on Warwick’s explanation of the town being unable to impose a fire tax after concern over lack of understanding came from town residence. He noted that the reason for how and why the fire department is funded that way it was per a legislative decision the town made years ago.

“We talked to legal about it,” Warren said. “He said, we legislatively cannot do a fire tax in the town of Newton Grove. Is that correct?”

“What we were told, the county collects the fire tax,” Starling replied. “On a city of resident Newton Grove bill, there is not a line item from county tax for a fire tax. So the money, as we understand upon the research, that the fire department has been receiving is by virtue of a legislative decision, from the town of Newton Grove, to the the fire department. So the fire tax, as we understand it today, would go from the fire tax from the county to the Newton Grove Fire Department. Then the additional money, from the town, that would go from the general tax base of the citizens of Newton Grove.”

Warren noted that is was presented that way per an agreement the town made with the fire department in the 1990s.

“That said, what we pay, it’s not an actual tax on the town of Newton Grove,” Warren added. “It was an agreement, from what we understand, that was drawn up in the ‘90s. So again, it would not be considered as a tax, it would just be an amount that we would give, but, it’s still not a town tax as we understand it. It comes out of the coffers of the town, in other words what we take in, it’s not a separate line item tax.”

Warwick also mentioned in the February meeting that the desire for a 2-cent increase came following funds allocated in recent years per that agreement.

“Over the last several years, and I’ve gone back through different budgets, 2017 to 2018, we received $43,067 from the town,” he stated. “In 2020-2021 the budget was $44,310, and for the last three years that number been about $46,000. As you see over the course of about seven years, there’s been very little change, less than $3,000.”

A small increase in funding he also highlighted was not sufficient enough to offset the current rising cost of operations and equipment. Those outliers, he said, were the need for a contract update from the town which hadn’t changed since 1999.

“We’re one of three towns that we know of that are contributing to its fire departments like we are,” Warren said. “We are far higher than any of the other two in what we’re giving our fire department. But, this will have to be a thing that we would have to sit down with the board to come up with a plan.

“We’re currently working on our budget now, for July 1, and so we will have to make a determination between now and then, if we’re to enter into a new contract, or whatever it is we’re going to do to come up with that figure,” he added. “Because again, it’s not based on tax rate, it’s based on what someone came up with in the past as a dollar amount.”