Interim Sampson County manager Jeffrey Hudson talks to commissioners about contract amendments he is asking each fire department to consider during Monday night’s meeting. (Sherry Matthews|Sampson Independent)
County, fire departments work toward new contracts
Sampson County Commissioner Chip Crumpler, Dist. 3, talks with interim county manager Jeffrey Hudson prior to Monday night’s board meeting. Crumpler ask that several items listed on the board’s consent agenda be moved to action items — including the amendments to fire department contracts — to allow information to be given to both commissioners and the public. Consent agenda items are approved but usually not discussed during that board meeting; it is rare for one to be voted down. (Sherry Matthews|Sampson Independent)
A fire tax rate agreement between Sampson County and the fire departments of Taylor’s Bridge and Vann Crossroads was presented to the public Monday night and approved by the Sampson County Board of Commissioners. It is the first two of what is expected to be several such agreements between the county and its area fire departments.
At the Sampson County Commissioners’ regular meeting, Chip Crumpler, county commissioner for Dist. 3, made the motion to have items removed from the consent agenda and placed among the action items — two of those items were the Fire Protection and Rescue Services agreements between the county and the two fire districts.
A contract which has been in place for the past five years is set to expire in July, board members were told by interim county manager Jeffrey Hudson during the meeting. In order to renew this service agreement between the county and the fire districts, a proposed contract has been made between the county government and the fire departments.
The entire purpose of the Fire Protection & Rescue Services Contract is to ensure the correct provision of fire and rescue services to the citizens of Sampson County, Hudson noted.
The interim county manager laid out the proposed plan during the meeting, noting that he felt like it was a plan beneficial to the departments and to the county.
“We proposed to all the fire chiefs, at a recent meeting, a fire amendment which would be between the county and each individual fire department,” Hudson explained. He continued by saying since they are individual agencies it seeks to change the relationship between the county and the fire departments.
The agreement is for the county to set a rate for each fire department, which was decided since the last property tax evaluation. Based on the new agreement, the fire departments would not have to submit a budget every year if they accept an individual tax rate for their respective districts and abide by certain requirements set forth in a contract by the county.
“The expectation of the county should be if we give money to the fire departments, they provide a service,” Hudson said during the meeting. “This new amendment, which would extend their contract for five more years, requires that they do things such as make available their financial data and will respond to a minimum of 95 percent of all emergency, fire and rescue calls, as tracked by the county.”
Hudson further explained that the emergency calls can be tracked since the county is responsible for dispatching emergency calls from the 911 center.
Minimum levels of acceptable response were defined as: A car accident will require a response with a class A rated engine; a structure fire with a class A rated engine; a brush or woods fire will require a class A rated engine or a brush truck; fire alarms will be any response deemed appropriate by a fire department and any other calls deemed appropriate by the fire department.
“There are some things in this agreement that allow some flexibility,” noted Hudson, acknowledging that sometimes fire alarms can be false alarms, but basically it’s a 95 percent response rate.
Any departments that agree to this contract extension will be “treated as a sister agency and do not require an annual budget,” said Hudson. However, he added, if they fail to meet requirements then they have to submit their full budget and all details to the fire commission. The same is true if they want a higher rate — that has to go first to the fire commission and then to the commissioners.
“We believe the majority of fire departments will be fine with this,” stated Hudson.
But the manager also wanted to stress how the new proposal works, saying he didn’t want anyone confused as to who decides the budget and rules of this agreement.
“Let me be perfectly clear for the public and the media,” Hudson stated, “the Board of Commissioners cannot delegate their taxing authority to anyone else. The fire commission does not set the tax rate, the fire department does not set the tax rate. Only the Board of Commissioners sets the tax rate, whether it is the county general property tax, or whether it is the fire tax or another service district tax.
“So, it is entirely possible that in the years to come, some fire departments might say ‘I know I got 10 cents but I want 20 cents.’ This Board of Commissioners can set it (the fire tax) at 15, 10, 5, 2, 7; any number. Only this board has this authority.”
As of the meeting Monday night, only Taylors Bridge and Vann Crossroads had signed contracts with the county, extending their contracts with Sampson starting in July of this year, but Hudson indicated there were other signed contracts on his desk that came in too late to be placed on the Monday night agenda.
Currently Taylor’s bridge fire tax rate sits at 8.5 cents with total funding of $403,600. The amendment to extend five years would increase the tax rate to 9.5 with a total funding of $484,652.
Vann Crossroads is currently at an eight-cent tax rate which would increase to 10 cents, increasing total funding from $118,380 to $136,590.
The contracts with Sampson County, Taylors Bridge and Vann Crossroads fire departments were approved unanimously Monday night.
Chuck Thompson is a correspondent covering Sampson County government for The Sampson Independent.