FAYETTEVILLE -- A firm agreement on how to increase Fire Department coverage of the city's core and the University of Arkansas campus and help keep response times low citywide remained elusive after a Town and Gown Advisory Committee task force meeting Monday.
Mike Johnson, associate vice chancellor for facilities at the university, told the other task force members the university would look into leasing university land near Fayetteville Fire Station No. 2 north of campus or helping the department buy a replacement engine or ladder.
By the numbers
Fayetteville Fire calls for service
The Fayetteville Fire Department says it needs more personnel to respond quickly to a rising number of calls.
• 2010: 7,093
• 2011: 7,849
• 2012: 8,060
• 2013: 8,462
• 2014: 9,250
• 2015: Roughly 10,000 projected
Source: Fayetteville Fire Department
The aid would help the department take care of one-time needs or provide space for a station expansion, but it would leave the city with the cost of hiring more firefighters and building new facilities. It would also fall short of the department's proposal in September to tack on a student fee of $3.50 per credit hour to build and staff a new, expanded station.
"We're not going to be able to entertain that at this point," Johnson said of a fee or other continuous source of money from the university. The equipment and land choices "are the two options I think have resonance with the senior leadership."
Fire Chief David Dayringer, another task force member, has pushed for the fee option, saying the university's rising enrollment is a primary reason for the department's growing call volume and lagging response time. Fayetteville's population grew from by about 6,000 people from 2010 to 2014, according to the U.S. Census, a count that includes the university. In that time, university enrollment grew almost 5,000, according to university data.
"It's not a problem so much as it's pressure on the system," Dayringer said at the task force's first meeting two weeks ago. "We're addressing it. We're asking for a partner to address it with us."
About 400 calls out of almost 10,000 so far this year have come from campus, Dayringer said earlier this month, but more come from students and university staff off campus. The department doesn't track that number, but Dayringer said annual call volume typically equals roughly 10 percent of a given population, or about 3,000 in all for the university.
The $3.50 fee would be split evenly between Fayetteville Fire and university police and would raise about $1.4 million next year for each, allowing the Fire Department to hire a new 10-firefighter company, according to information from Dayringer. The City Council hiked Fayetteville property taxes by 1 mill to cover a separate new firefighter company for similar reasons.
Johnson countered students and faculty in Fayetteville fall under the same sales and property taxes as other residents for city fire service. He also pointed to the university's economic impact: more than $900 million in Northwest Arkansas in fiscal 2014, according to a study early this year by the university's Center for Business and Economic Research.
Any proposed student fee would typically goes through review by the chancellor's office before possibly heading to the Board of Trustees for approval, university spokesman Steve Voorhies said earlier this month.
The task force was created in September to find a workable compromise on the proposal and send it to the Town and Gown panel, which in turn advises the City Council and university about issues concerning both. The task force Monday set another meeting on Dec. 21. Its recommendation is expected in January.
Monday's meeting followed a similar pattern as the one two weeks before, with both sides repeating arguments and debating the other's.
Dayringer said more firefighters are the best way to address the system pressure; Johnson pointed out fire calls don't fall much in the summer. Casey Jones, city prosecutor and task force member, noted the school holds summer sessions; Johnson said a relatively low number of students attend those. About 13,000 students combined attended the two 2015 summer sessions, or roughly half of fall 2015 enrollment.
Johnson then said fire protection should be the duty of the city. Dayringer countered the university comprises almost one-third of the city's population but includes many students who don't directly pay property taxes.
Johnson suggested the university could consider leasing a few acres it owns near Cleveland Street and Garland Avenue, where Fire Station No. 2 sits, to the city, perhaps for a dollar per year. He and Dayringer discussed the cost of ladders and engines, which can range from around $700,000 to more than $1.5 million. The rising demand on the department means each vehicle needs to be replaced more quickly, Dayringer said.
NW News on 11/24/2015