Supervisors table decision on long-sought County fire training facility

At its Tuesday, March 3 meeting, the Warren County Board of Supervisors tabled a decision on accepting a low-bid $214,360 contract for construction of a fire training structure that would allow County Fire & Rescue to keep its large volunteer staff training in house. Coupled with an estimated $35,640 in site work, the total budget for the development of the training facility at the County’s Environmental Study Area Off Route 55 East was cited at $250,000. The low bid meeting all the department’s requirements was from Patriot Products of Franklin, Indiana.

Currently, the department training is conducted in partnership with other jurisdictions at their training facilities, primarily in Shenandoah County or Winchester and Frederick County. And while County Emergency Services Chief Richard Mabie and Fire Marshal Gerry Maiatico explained there aren’t significant costs tied to that training partnership, there are logistical and budgetary issues that have made the establishment of its own, in-county training facility a departmental priority for a decade or more.

Graphics of the proposed training structure in the as-yet-to-be-accepted low bid of Patriot Products of Franklin, Indiana. Photos by Roger Bianchini. Video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

“We look at this as a long-term project that is part of a 12-year planning process,” Maiatico told the county supervisors. He added that having established facilities would put the department in a stronger position on future capital improvement grant applications to the state. He noted that state agencies were more likely to award grants for expansion or improvements to existing emergency services structures, rather than for new construction.

However, South River Supervisor Cheryl Cullers said she was “uncomfortable” committing County funding to capital improvement projects before knowing the total dynamics of the budget process underway for the Fiscal Year 2021.

She pointed to the previous agenda item discussion of an $872,213 federal grant application for new firefighting equipment, 105 sets of “self-contained breathing apparatus” (SCBA) units that allow firefighters to enter and work in smoke and fire-filled environments. The staff summary noted a 15% local cost share should the grant be achieved, requiring the County to add $113,767 if the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant was achieved.

Should that grant application fail – and the staff summary indicated a total of $315 million of federally administered FEMA funding to cover an estimated 2,500 grant awards from an unknown number of applicants nationally – Cullers said she believed the supervisors would have hard budgetary choices to make, particularly looking at a nearly million-dollar cost for needed equipment.
After reiterating her support of the ever-popular local municipal elected official mantra of “not raising taxes to balance coming budget proposals” Cullers expressed the opinion that the breathing equipment would be a priority for county funding over the fire training facility.

Cullers said the County didn’t have a money tree, but if anyone did, she would be happy “to come to pick money off it” to fund the emergency services requests.

County Fire Marshal Gerry Maiatico explains the 12-year genesis of County Emergency Services’ request to fund construction of a local fire training structure.

“We will be able to shake our own money tree,” Maiatico replied, referencing $406,000 cited in both the SCBA equipment grant application and fire-training facility agenda summaries as being available in the County Fire & Rescue budget from a previous award from the Fire Programs Fund.

And with the department’s existing SCBA units described as at their “end of life and in desperate need of replacement” the chance of achieving one of those 2,500 FEMA grants might be a reasonable expectation that would allow both the equipment and training facility requests to be covered by existing departmental revenues earmarked for those specific uses.

And the County Fire Marshal added that was the equipment grant application to fail, the department would look at financing options, rather than simply return to the board with a request for the $844,000 balance of the million-dollar cost of the breathing apparatus equipment after $250,000 was committed to the fire training facility.

Maiatico also explained the advisability of the department acquiring its own fire training facility as putting the department in a stronger position to achieve future state grant applications on capital improvement costs. He noted the state was more likely to award grants for expansion or improvements to existing facilities, rather than to fund new structures.

Authorizing the expenditure of County money is not a favorite move of the new county board, particularly without having all the budget requests in front of them.

However, the board was reluctant to commit any County money at this point. So, Happy Creek Supervisor Tony Carter’s motion, seconded by Cullers, to table a vote on acceptance of the fire training facility construction bid to the next March meeting was unanimously approved.

Earlier it seemed the board majority was reluctant to even approve the grant application for the breathing apparatuses because of the 15% local match. However, they relented after they were assured that were the grant awarded, Fire & Rescue would have to return to ask for the $113,767 local match to allow the federal grant to be accepted.

So, Delores Oates motion to authorize the grant application, seconded by Cullers passed unanimously.

Royal Examiner video of Board of Supervisors Meeting of March 3, 2020.