BENTONVILLE -- Fire Chief Rob Taylor hopes voters in a July 9 special election approve a rise in fire dues in the Northeast Benton County Volunteer Fire Department District.
Early voting starts Tuesday. If the measure passes, it would be the first increase for the district in 20 years.
The election comes as Northwest Arkansas volunteer fire departments struggle to maintain adequate staffing while also trying to keep equipment in good condition.
Volunteer departments serve most of the area outside the larger cities in Benton and Washington counties, and their firefighters are the first on the scene in many rural emergency situations.
It's a hard job that's complicated by difficulty in finding people to do it. Finding volunteer firefighters is a national problem that trickles down to the local level, Taylor said.
According to the National Fire Department Registry, 84% of Arkansas fire departments are all volunteer. Another 9.6% are mostly volunteer. The registry lists departments registered with the U.S. Fire Administration. Registration for the list is voluntary, and Arkansas has 684 departments registered.
The amount of training and certification required for the job has increased over the years, and so has the number of calls. Some volunteers just melt away because of the heavy workload, Rogers Fire Chief Tom Jenkins said.
Emergency medical calls, rather that fighting fires, account for most of the volunteer departments' calls in his area, Jenkins said.
Robert McGowen, the Benton County administrator of public safety, said reports from June 1 of last year through May 31 of this year show there were 117,248 calls for service to the county's central communications dispatch. Roughly 8.6% of the calls were for fires, and about 51.2% were medical calls, he said.
"People just don't want to do [the volunteer job] anymore," said Chris Coker, president of the Washington County Fire Association, who also serves as chief of the 12-man volunteer Strickler Fire Department in Washington County.
Benton County is a busy place, Jenkins said. "There's not a fire chief in the county who will tell you they have enough volunteers."
Jenkins said that over the past decade the need for his department to help smaller volunteer departments has grown, something he attributes to the lack of manpower at those smaller departments.
The rate increase, if approved, would help the Northeast Benton County district update some worn-out equipment and try to hire two firefighters, who would work either 12- or 24-hour shifts, Taylor said.
The proposed rates for the Northeast Benton County department would be:
• $84 a year for structures less than $100,000 in value, an increase of $44 over the current rate of $40.
• $154 a year for structures valued $100,001 to $300,000, an increase of $79, up from $75.
• $244 a year for structures of more than $300,001 in value, an increase of $124, up from $120.
The higher fees would start in 2020, if approved, Taylor said.
His volunteer department has 22 firefighters and five stations with two trucks each, Taylor said. It also has two full-time, paid emergency medical services positions and 25 part-time EMS spots, he said.
The district covers 84 square miles and has about 5,000 people, said Taylor, who has been the fire chief since 2002. It had two stations and four trucks when he started in 1984.
He said calls for service continue to increase. The department answered about 650 fire calls last year and 261 calls so far this year, he said. It averaged about 620 calls per year before 2018, he said.
The membership fees brought in $168,500 last year, $167,000 in 2017 and $164,000 in 2016, Taylor said. The increase could add $190,000 in the first year, he said.
The fire district participation rate is about 96% of eligible residents, fire board chairman Dean Adair told county justices of the peace April 16. Residents who don't pay the dues are billed if the department has to go to their homes, and a fire run starts at $500, he said.
Taylor said higher dues also would help his department replenish some outdated, expensive equipment.
He said turnout gear -- from hats to boots -- is showing wear. A new set of turnout gear costs about $3,000, he said. Air bottles and air packs also need to be replaced. Some of the department's air packs are 15 years old, and other gear is past the manufacturer's recommended use date.
He credited county officials for buying firefighting apparatus and giving them to the volunteer departments each year.
But money is a continual problem for volunteer fire departments, Taylor said.
Benton County covers 884 square miles, according to the county assessor's office. That means most of the county is covered by one of 17 volunteer fire departments outside of Bentonville, Bella Vista, Lowell, Rogers and Siloam Springs, Benton County Assistant Fire Marshal Eric Smith said.
Washington County consists of 952 square miles, according to the county assessor's office. There are 19 volunteer fire departments in that county, according to Coker.
The Northeast Benton County department's proposal to hire two firefighters on 12 or 24-hour shifts could be a template for other volunteer departments to follow, Smith said, but having the money to implement such a plan would be an issue.
SundayMonday on 06/30/2019