The joint committee that plans for the Statesboro Fire Tax District – the area outside the city limits served by the Statesboro Fire Department – met Tuesday, and Bulloch County Commissioners Chairman Roy Thompson made clear that the commissioners won’t grant the city’s request for a 0.75-mill increase in the district’s special tax rate this year.
City Manager Charles Penny said the city can operate its Fire Department, with recent staffing additions, employee raises and other increased expenses, without an increase in the tax rate for one more year. But after that, the Statesboro Fire Service Fund, which supplies the budget of the SFD for both in-city and fire district service, will be so depleted that a tax increase will be necessary next year, he said.
“Without that millage increase, what we’re going to see is a depletion of fund balance, and with the depletion of fund balance – that’s fund balance in the fire fund – we may jeopardize equipment replacement,” Penny said. “But basically, we just won’t have fund balance, and recognizing that with fund balance, once it's gone, it’s gone.”
Declining reserve
Last fiscal year, the fire service fund – in other words, the Statesboro Fire Department’s budget – carried $4.7 million in projected revenue, covering an equal amount of budgeted expenses. But that was with a projected decrease in the remaining fund balance from $1.5 million down to $891,000.
For fiscal year 2023, which is now underway, the fire fund budget is, technically, balanced at $5.31 million. But that is with a projected further reduction in the fund balance to $37,104.
Added payroll positions last year, including the city-authorized hiring of nine more firefighters and four dispatchers, account for some of the added costs. With these, the SFD is authorized for 57 certified firefighters, and up to 63 total personnel. But the department struggles to recruit and keep firefighters, and so currently has 49 firefighters, city officials said Tuesday.
This year the Statesboro Fire Department has again applied for a federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, or SAFER, grant, this time for 12 firefighters. The department previously applied for a grant for 21 firefighters but was not approved, and City Council last year authorized hiring for the nine added positions anyway.
The 12 firefighters sought in this year’s SAFER application are not included in the fire fund budget.
However, the city’s 4% across-the-board raise for its employees this year, and continuation of performance raises, are other added costs. Penny said that these are necessary in that struggle to maintain and improve staffing in the fire department.
County position
Meanwhile, the county’s budget includes a 6% across-the-board raise for county employees, with no performance raises.
“I think y’all got the same problems that we’ve got. … ,” Thompson said. “We need firefighters ourselves. We need fire trucks; we need equipment.”
Tuesday afternoon’s meeting, which brought Bulloch County Public Safety and Bulloch County Fire Department leaders, county staff members and two commissioners together with the Statesboro Fire Department chief, city staff members, the mayor and a council member at City Hall, highlighted the city’s and county’s differing approaches to their fiscal year 2023 budgets.
Because of inflation in real estate values as assessed for taxes, as well as real growth in construction and development, both the Bulloch County government and the city of Statesboro would see increased revenue from property taxes even if they left their millage rates unchanged.
Millage rates won’t officially be set until September, but the city and county elected officials let their intentions be known with their budgets for the new fiscal year that began July 1.
The commissioners’ budget proposes a 0.25-mill rollback of the county’s main millage rate, from 11.6 mills to 11.35 mills. Meanwhile, Statesboro’s mayor and council adopted a budget that incorporates a 1.5-mill increase in the city’s property tax rate, from the previous 7.308 mills to 8.808.
Because of inflation in property values, county tax bills will also still increase. A full 1-mill rollback would have been required to offset the inflation.
Two fire rates
The county also has two special, added millage rates for fire service. In the county budget, both the 1.97-mill Rural Fire District rate, which funds the Bulloch County Fire Department for service over the rest of the county, and the Statesboro Fire District rate of 2.25 mills remain the same.
City officials requested an increase of 0.75-mill in the Statesboro Fire District rate, to 3 mills. But as County Manager Tom Couch had said several weeks ago, county commissioners expressed resistance to raising any portion of the millage this year.
Thompson confirmed that Tuesday.
He noted that during the county’s own fiscal year 2023 budget uses about $2.5 million of accumulated general fund balance to cover employee raises and added expenses while avoiding a tax rate increase. In considering the budget, commissioners and staff received funding requests, with proposed increases, from 44 departments, offices and funded agencies, and “were able to gift 28 of those something,” Thompson said.
“But we did give a promise to the others that asked that, maybe next year,” he said. “It’s tough.”
County’s share
For fiscal 2022, the county’s projected contribution to the Statesboro Fire Service fund was $1,444,412, or 30.7% of the SFD’s total budget. For fiscal 2023, the county contribution is projected to rise to $1,546,360, with no millage increase. But because of the increased spending, the county’s share is projected to drop to 29.1% of the total.
City officials noted that the Statesboro Fire District, extending five miles from the SFD stations, is actually geographically larger than the city itself.
The all career-firefighter Statesboro Fire Department maintains a much better Insurance Services Organization, or ISO, fire safety rating, Class 2 for the areas it serves, potentially resulting in lower fire insurance premiums, than exists in the rest of the county.
With the service provided by the combination career and volunteer Bulloch County Fire Department, the far reaches of the county still have ISO ratings of 9 to 10, county officials said, but they have been taking steps to improve the rural fire service with new equipment and more paid personnel.
Some other topics and comments from Tuesday’s meeting, including “a rumor” that the county wants eventually to take over firefighting service in what is now the city-served fire district, will be included in another story or a revision of this one for Thursday’s print edition.
The officials also planned to meet again as a committee on Oct. 3 at 10 a.m.