BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE – After another night of public comments attacking the city commission for proposed cuts to the police and fire budgets, one commissioner shared her response to all that has been said in hope that the consolidation of public safety services was still on the table.
“I don’t understand where we’re going with decreasing and slashing our fire department,” said Shane Worten during public comments Aug. 15, noting that the city commission is supposedly hurting financially, but the board is also giving across-the-board pay raises.
“I’m not in any way claiming to be the most smartest person in this room. Not by a longshot. But even my dog can understand that something doesn’t make sense in this situation,” Worten said, crediting the fire departments in Bradford and Clay with saving his church’s fellowship hall when the sanctuary burned several years ago. He asked commissioners how they would feel losing a family member in a fire because there weren’t enough fire personnel in the county to respond.
Other commenters took the same position and continued to take the city to task for cutting firefighter positions while remaining personnel, including themselves would get raises.
“There is a vital need for these services, and you have an obligation as elected officials to provide for the safety of this community,” Deirdre Hale commented, followed by Judith Young, who said Mayor Scott Roberts and City Manager Drew Mullins had both failed to communicate back to her about this and other issues when she reached out to them.
Commissioner Janice Mortimer had plenty to say, including about the city’s commitment to public safety. She tried to clarify some things about how the city got here and correct some misconceptions about the impact of the proposed consolidation of services with the county.
In May, she said, a majority of commissioners voted to reduce the police budget from $2.2 to $1.6 million. At the invitation of the commission, Sheriff Gordon Smith presented a consolidation plan under which he would continue to provide his services — which Starke taxpayers are already paying for.
Under a contract with the city commission, Mortimer said the sheriff would enhance those services and guarantee constant patrol inside the city limits, which would cost $345,000.
It was after that, Police Chief Jeff Johnson returned to the commission and voluntarily cut his budget again to $1.1 million, with which he said he could provide a basic level of service.
“I asked him specifically if this was his idea to offer this budget amendment, and he replied that it was. One can only assume that the commission’s effort to get control of spending in this area was well founded since he came back and offered up more than what wass requested,” she said.
Mortimer then turned to the fire department, saying a majority of the commission voted for a reduction in the fire budget as well.
“Since then, in subsequent budget workshops, the discussion has been on how this would affect staffing. What has not been adequately discussed is how the county and city fire departments work as one, even if under different management structures,” she said. City taxpayers financially support both the city and county fire departments, and everyone countywide benefits.
“Again, the county, at the invitation of the city commission, made a presentation in which they offered to provide a minimum of three firefighters and make the city station the county hub, and this was voted down three to two,” Mortimer said.
She continued, “Three years ago the county decided to go into the full-time firefighting business and open four fire stations. Each station was staffed with at least two full-time firefighters. Since the Starke property owners and citizens also helped pay for these additional county stations, it’s hard to see how anyone can question the commitment to adequate fire protection.
“With this new commitment to countywide firefighting, in just three years, Starke citizens and property owners have gone from paying for one station with four firefighters per 24-hour shift to now helping pay for five stations and 10 to 12 firefighters per shift. The combined force is between 35 and 45 firefighters with a budget reaching around $9 million.
“It only makes sense for us to adjust our spending when the county makes such a change and investment,” she said.
The cuts aren’t just about saving money, Mortimer insisted, but about investing resources in the right way.
“We provide basically three big ticket areas of service: public safety, utility and the transportation fund, which is basically paid for by gas taxes. The reason we haven’t made cuts in the utility budget is because we have not adequately addressed needs in our infrastructure. For some years now. We have not maintained our water tanks, and as a result, we now have been hit with a $400,000 bill to clean them. We have also been forced because of past years of neglect to build a new sewer plant. This would create a loan payment of $500,000 annually. We have just seen in the past week when it rains, sewer backed up in homes, because the pump’s lift station could not handle the flow. We’re voting to purchase property needed to build another lift station needed on Call Street. It will not be the last. … We have a $5 million collection system project pending. This, too, will be a combination grant-loan project. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
“These and other pending needs have been bought to our attention by our city engineers, and it’s been said we know it’s needed, but we can’t afford to do that right now. But can we afford not to do it? We can’t keep kicking the can down the road,” Mortimer said, going on to explain where the money to address infrastructure has been going instead.
“The truth is that utility system has been funding fire and police with transfers, some of them close to a million dollars in past years. We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Taking this town in a different direction is not an option. It’s a necessity.
“Basically, in order to get a budget passed, we have come down to one question: Will we adjust to a combined fire program in our county, which has gone from one station with four firefighters per shift to a combined city-county firefighting program of five stations with 10 to 12 firefighters on each shift, while at the same time reducing costs to the city residents by $500,000 or not. I would ask that we decide this issue and move on one way or the other. Everyone is equally committed to public safety. But we cannot let the cost be the only measuring stick for defining that commitment.
Countering claims that firefighters are losing their jobs, Mortimer said two have already moved to the county fire department, and the county would continue working with the city to take on the city’s personnel through attrition, resulting in no one receiving a pink slip.
Mortimer wanted her statement in the city’s records to reflect her voting record and consistency in voting to reduce utility revenue transfers to the general fund to keep customers’ rates as low as possible. That record included voting against a proposed increase in property taxes, which she said citizens cannot endure.
“We can provide an appropriate level of public safety without breaking the bank or the taxpayer. The offer to combine the fire departments into one efficient department that would mimic the current arrangement of a four-person engine is still on the table and available. I would seriously as commissioners consider that opportunity,” she said.
Mayor Roberts said they might not be talking about this at all if the county wasn’t now investing so much in its fire department. For now, the city commission has voted to fund two-firefighter shifts, which mirrors county staffing. The departments already work together on emergency response.
Between addressing aging infrastructure and having money on hand to deal with unplanned repairs like a broken water main, there are other priorities, he said.
Any suggestion that the city is endangering people by leaving them to burn up in fires is out of line, Roberts said.
