Fire officials plea for funds to augment South Warren Department

If my allergies weren’t so bad I probably could have smelled the odor of burnt wood on Warren County Fire & Rescue Chief Richard Mabie and Fire Marshall Gerry Maiatico at the December 13^th Warren County Board of Supervisors Work Session.  The pair prefaced their 11 a.m. appearance to request additional paid staffing for South Warren Company 3 with a quick summary of the early morning fire that destroyed an Activities Building at the North Fork Resort and Campground.

Mabie told the Supervisors that by the time first units arrived they found the building largely engaged and a central section of the roof threatening to collapse.  Mabie theorized the early-morning fire had been burning for some time before it was reported near 6:30 a.m.  Asked how many paid firefighters had been available for the call, Mabie said the timing of the call had been fortunate in one respect – six stations with paid staff on duty were at a shift change, so each of those six stations had two paid staff who responded.

“But the fire had such a head start it wouldn’t have mattered if we had 40 people out there,” Mabie added of the advanced state of the fire by the time first units arrived at the scene.

Then it was back to business – at least the business side of financing Fire & Rescue services in Warren County, particularly in rural South Warren.  And it is money and government’s ability and willingness to raise and spend it to achieve optimum levels of public safety for its citizens that was at issue.

Warren County Fire Chief Richard Mabie, far left, and Fire Marshal Gerry Maiatico, standing, made their case for additional paid staffing of South Warren Company 3 to help responses there, and to ease pressure on Fire & Rescue Companies countywide now needed to help cover South Warren calls. PHOTOS/ROGER BIANCHINI

Maiatico explained in prefacing departmental recommendations that South Warren Company 3 covers an area comprised of about 10 percent of the County’s population, but on about 30 percent of its land.  It is land that is rural, mountainous and often remote, even in the Browntown and Bentonville population centers.  It is also a department sharing a county and nationwide crisis in volunteerism; coupled with an aging segment of the population that even if they want to help, may not physically be able to.

Consequently, South Warren Company 3’s core membership has fallen from the seven reported in the 2009 Springsted “Study of the County’s Volunteer and Professional Fire & Rescue Department”, to just three members today.  In 2009, Springsted wrote of the then seven core firefighters of Company 3, “Members are extremely dedicated but are basically burned out from carrying the full load of daily operations and administrative functions.”

Today, with South Warren’s base personnel less than half that of 2009, the strain extends beyond Company 3 into other departments that help cover over 20 percent of South Warren calls – calls that numbered 378 in the last Fiscal Year.

Proposals

Following Fire Marshall Maiatico’s summary of Company 3’s logistical issues and their impact on surrounding departments, Chief Mabie presented four staffing options ranging from a preferred option of hiring four additional paid firefighters for South Warren at an annual cost of $240,000, to shuffling staff from Rivermont Company 2 to South Warren at no cost in the current budget.  Other compromise options were the hiring of either one or two new paid staff at a cost of $60,000 or $130,000, respectively.

But it was clear that the four-member option resulting in a fully-staffed South Warren Department was the Chief’s preferred solution.  While apologetic for requesting additional funding of nearly a quarter million dollars, Mabie told the Supervisors, “I urge you to consider this.  It is my first choice and the Company’s – I think Alan would tell you that if he were here,” Mabie said of South Warren Chief Alan Brockman.  “It solves the main problem at Company 3 and helps the other stations and service countywide.”

Scene of Tuesday, Dec. 13 North Fork Resort fire that provided an unexpected exclamation point to that day’s Fire & Rescue request for additional paid staffing.

In response to Mabie’s apologetic tone in promoting the most expensive option, North River Supervisor Dan Murray told the Chief, “You came to the right people – because public safety is our responsibility.”

Costs

Asked about the cost to the county of funding four new paid staff at an annual total of $240,000, County Administrator Doug Stanley noted that with each penny of County Real Estate Tax producing just over $400,000, slightly over a half penny of additional real estate tax would cover funding the four new positions option.

As the discussion neared an end, Chief Mabie restated his case for the full staffing option – “I still like Option One, you get the best bang for your buck in Number One and the citizens get the best bang for their buck in Number One.  I almost guarantee you that not a citizen in South River would complain about one penny to have the response there when they have chest pains.”

When you need them, you need them – trust me on that.

And with the impact of Company 3’s staffing shortages taking units from companies across the county to help cover South Warren calls, Mabie might have extended that guarantee countywide.

A Plan

After discussion and staff review of budget dynamics, the board consensus appeared to be to fund two new positions in the current budget for the balance of this Fiscal Year; and have Grant Coordinator Brandy Rosser pursue potential public funding options to cover the balance of costs for the full-staffing option in the next Fiscal Year, which begins July 1, 2017.

Stanley told the Board there was adequate money ($65,000) in the current budget to cover costs of the two new paid staff for the remaining six months of the current Fiscal Year.  Having met for the final time in 2016, the Board appears poised to take formal action to fund Option Two for six months at one of its two January meetings.