Commissioners facing the future of fire rescue services
BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — The public may not fully comprehend — or even agree with — the need to raise revenue to support county fire and emergency medical services, but Bradford County Fire Rescue is very transparent about how it operates and what it will cost to continue operating at that level.
In fact, the department has just updated its most recent annual report, detailing operations during the current fiscal year, from Oct. 1, 2021, through Jan. 24, 2022.
The EMS division answered 3,021 calls for service during that time. That averages to 26 calls a day, but the high end was 37 calls in a day. On 22 days, there were calls when no ambulances available for transport. When that happens, emergency response must come from the fire department and/or a neighboring county.
The COVID-19 pandemic certainly hasn’t slowed things down. From October to January, 9% of all calls involved documented COVID patients. That means emergency personnel were encountering COVID patients an average of three times a day.
Something that helps generate revenue for the department are interfacility transfers. These average five or six a day, accounting for 21% of all service calls.
While the fire division is trained in firefighting, hazardous materials and disaster response, they are also dual certified as paramedics or emergency medical technicians. That allowed firefighting personnel to respond to 577 calls from Oct. 1 through Jan. 24, around 20 of which were fire related. Compared structure and other fires, the fire division handled 458 medical responses. Of that number, there were 65 times the division responded when there was no ambulance available. Forty-one calls involved motor vehicle accidents, and five of those accidents required patient extraction.
Bradford County Fire Rescue has five fully staffed full-time advanced life support ambulances and three fully staffed two-firefighter engine companies. There are 25 full-time employees on staff every day. Most are the paramedics, EMTs and firefighters who work shifts staffing the ambulances and engines 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Other staff, including the director, two division chiefs, the medical director, training captain, fire marshal and administrative assistant, work 8–5 Monday through Friday or when needed to assure continuity. In total there are 61 full-time employees and nine part-time employees.
Personnel are stationed in several facilities, including the billing and records office in the courthouse; the EMS headquarters behind the courthouse, which is Station 6; the courthouse annex, which is the headquarters for fire; Station 5 in Lawtey; Station 2 in Theressa and Station 9 in Sampson City. The shift lieutenant responds from the station at Heilbronn Springs, Station 4.
Station 6 houses two ambulances and fire rescue’s administrative headquarters. Stations 5, 2 and 9 each have one ambulance and one firefighting company. Station 10, the unstaffed station in Speedville, houses the tax collector’s satellite office and serves to store specialty response vehicles and equipment. The former Hampton station is also used for logistics.
According to last year’s annual report, EMS billed more than $5.5 million in services for 2020–2021, and collected 59% of that amount, or $3.2 million. The service collected more than anticipated for both interfacility transfers and ambulance services.
Bradford Fire Rescue spent nearly $6.29 million with 81% of the total going toward salaries and benefits and the remining amount covering operating costs. The county’s costs minus the revenue generated was $3.06 million.
Saved in recent years by reserve spending or federal aid, county commissioners are now struggling with how to raise revenue to maintain this level of service. The property tax rate has been raised to the maximum 10 mills, and options like special tax assessments and electric franchise fees are being considered.
Committing to a solution hasn’t been easy, but commissioners are preparing to make hard choices. What the numbers don’t reveal are the human impacts from either raising costs or cutting services.
The commission will hold a special meeting to make its case in favor of franchise fees and to receive public feedback at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24, in the commission meeting chambers at the Bradford County Courthouse.
Clay Electric will use the opportunity to hear what its members have to say. According to the electric cooperative, a 3% franchise fee would raise customer bills an average of $4.26 a month, or $51.12, a year.
