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Escambia To Hold Public Hearing On Fire Tax Increase
June 14, 2011
The fire fee tacked onto your annual property tax bill may be going up if you are a resident of Escambia County.
The Escambia County Commission has scheduled a Thursday public hearing to consider hiking the Municipal Services Benefit Unit (MSBU) fee by $5 per year for the next couple of years.
The current fee, assessed to Escambia County residents outside the city limits of Pensacola, is $75 per year. If the county commission passes the proposal, the fee would be $80 in 2012 and $85 in 2013.
Commercial property owners would also see an increase in the their fire tax, jumping about $60 per 10,000 square feet.
The increase fees, estimated at about a half million from residential property owners, will go toward funding 12 paid firefighters. The firefighters were first hired under a 2009 grant that decreases yearly before ending.
The public hearing on the increase will be June 16, 5:30 in the commission chambers at the Escambia County Governmental Complex on Palafox Place in downtown Pensacola.
Comments
23 Responses to “Escambia To Hold Public Hearing On Fire Tax Increase”
Eliminate the fire tax and privatize fire service.
This is one increase that I would not mind paying. Just last night my 82 year young father in law had a heart attack in my living room and molino fire and rescue were here in 4 minutes ….great job and thanks much .Because of these good people he is doing well. I’ll pay the 80 bucks with a smile on my face. Though I tend to agree it should be put to a vote, don’t take the power from the people.
“Get your facts srt8 ” wrote
>>>I guess there is some one sided stuff here at this paper. My comment was deleted. I guess thats why the People of North Escambia do not know the truth!
Nope. Your comment was *not* deleted. Read rule #5 at the bottom of every story — “Comments may not appear right away until they are approved by a moderator”.
I guess there is some one sided stuff here at this paper. My comment was deleted. I guess thats why the People of North Escambia do not know the truth!
Lets take a look at this for a moment. You, the citizens of Escambia county pay 75 dollars for fire protection. Look around you and see what the city of Pensacola is paying, Midway, Bagdad, Milton, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, and so on. No for some reason this is all about the Ensley Fire house. NO. Its about the rising cost of fuel, maintenance, equipment, useless refurbs of trucks that was not needed, energy costs, water, and so on. That what the increase is for. I am tired of you northern Escambia people complaining about this and you dont even know what you are talking about. Do you know where most of your funding comes from? Thats right southern Escambia County. Maybe the southern people are tire of a majority of their money going to the end.
And Firefighter, there are no where near 400 volunteers, sorry paid on call, in the Escambia County system. And the volunteers DO NOT HAVE THE SAME TRAINING. Some do but very few. So dont go there. Get your facts straight.
It is sad that it takes this so called paper, tabloid, toilet paper to get thing going again to create news.
And Benthere, your are dead wrong. The Escambia County Fire Service is not mandating the certifications IT IS THE STATE OF FLORIDA!!!!!!!!!! And the turn over in the paid on call personell is so great that there is no experience in the ranks any more. GET YOU FACTS STR8!!!!!!!!!!
Lastly
For the individuals who think that it necessary to make this increase in fire tax an issue between career and volunteer. The Dictionary is very clear about it: VOLUNTEER: –noun
1.
a person who voluntarily offers himself or herself for a service or undertaking who performs a service willingly and without pay.
Hmmmmmmmm. Sounds like there should not be any compensation for volunteers, which means that our volunteers (used to be one myself and never accepted the first penny of compensation because I wanted to serve my community for free) are really what the fire service considers to be Paid On Call firemen and women. Nothing wrong with that, just don’t go blaming it on the career firemen who spend significantly more time away from their families for additional training and work for a very meager paycheck.
This fire tax will increase the quality of training, equipment, and ultimately the service for EVERYBODY in the county, especially the northend. When is this going to get through your thick skull people?????
I am happy to pay $5.00 more a year. Now if I can get Allstate Ins. To agree to such a low increase. Our firefighters are well worth it and a lot more.
Sandra, i personally take offense to what u said. I have been a volunteer ff for 20 years. The only difference between paid and volunteer is that i dont stay at station 24/7. I am a emt i have taken 160 hour ff,hazmat training,and so much more hours of training that i wont post because it would take up page. I do it because i want to help people. To make a ignorant remark like u did just shows me that u know nothing about the fire service. As far as the tax, from someone who used to be in a fl. Dept, i wish the depts in escambia county al. Could count on a tax. We could use it for better equipment and training.
I don’t understand why they try to push out the Vol Firefighters that are doing this for FREE, Yes FREE, that little bit of money they give a month won’ot even pay for the gas the guys/girls use in their POV. Most of the volunteers have been with the Dept for years and have a LOT of hands on training and know a whole lot more than some of the new paid firemen that may be running their first few calls after their schooling are shaken in their boots scared to death they are going to mess up or do something wrong. We all went through it so please don’t say you would rather have a paid FF on your call if you ever needed one, you could get a paid FF on his first call!! You can take all kinds of classes and have all kinds of training untill you get out into the real world and run calls and get some real experience. I would rather have a vol that had been out in the real world.
They could save a lot of money by using more volunteers instead of trying to run the volunteers out of the departments.
Yes volunteers train and are Brave and put their lives on the line and are Proud of what they do and most of us don’t do it for the recognition, its the enjoyment of saving a life and helping our neighbors and even strangers in their time of need.
So to call volunteers hillbillys that don’t know what they are doing but driving a big red truck and putting the wet stuff on the hot stuff is just HOG-WASH or just plain BULL
I am not nor have I ever been a firefighter so let me get that out of the way first and foremost. I live in the Walnut Hill area and have for the last 25 years. I have seen the changes in the way the volunteer firefighters have to train and I can tell you that I personally would rather have our team of volunteers come to my aid than any of the paid firefighters I have seen in this area including Ensley.
It is true that these brave men and women do receive a small amout of money each month if they attend the training meeting and make at least half the calls that go out for the month. Why shou;dn’t they get something for their time and service to our community. I am not going to fuss about $5.00 a year for the fire tax if it helps to save one life of a child or any one else. I do fuss about the way the county spends the money and then expects the taxpayers to pay to cover their butts after they over spend. Goverment of any kind over spends in this country more than any other I have ever seen. Of course we elect these people to govern all of us. So if you think that we need a change vote the suckers out. Not just in the north end but all over the county.
I have noticed that Escambia County Florida nevers tries to get any type of new businesses to locate in this area to create more jobs and more tax dollars for the county. They can spend all kind of money to sell people on coming to the beachbut, that only last a few months. Look at the port of Mobile then look at ours. Look at all the companies that Mobile and Bladwin county are getting to build plants and create jobs for people. What is wrong with our county and why can’t we get more than a beach ball to play with?
I feel like the main complaint of the comment section is, “county fire needs to budget their money better to help provide for this “Ensley Crew”.” Why don’t we take a look again at stipend and investigate how much money has to be budgeted each year for it?
Escambia Reader states the association is “made up of the volunteer chiefs that only have the overall fire protection at heart and not a personal stake, other than being taxpayers themselves.” However, if this was the case, why don’t they promote a real VOLUNTEER atmosphere and vote to get rid of the stipend. This would add a great deal of money to the pot that would be used to cover expenses. The association will argue that stipend is part of the retention policy. Look at the dwindling trend of volunteers in this county and nationwide; is stipend really working? The fact of the matter is, is that some individuals expect a monthly stipend check instead of seeing it as a gift for their services.
Escambia County needs to re-look at the concept of career and volunteer firefighters. Career firefighters were first brought into this county to help supplement the volunteers during work hours. Due to increases in training and a dwindling economy the new role of volunteers now should be to help supplement the career personnel. This is why the Ensley (an unincorporated part of Escambia County not the “City” as one stated) station goes to the “North Escambia”….To help supplement the man-power with a guaranteed four man crew.
Last, where is the complaint about how much money we pay to the sheriff’s office? We pay close to double the taxes to the sheriff’s office (a department which is much needed). Taxes for public safety (Fire/EMS) are no different and should be seen through rational eyes as an investment for one’s health and property. Take a step-back, sacrifice a carton of cigarettes for the tax increase and appreciate the fact that you have a well-trained, well equipped fire/rescue department.
Dan and Escambia Reader, as a former volunteer at ECFR Station 3 (Brent) I can tell you that the reason the volunteers were asked to combine with Bellview, was the fact that very expensive equipment was just sitting there while calls went unanswered by the volunteers. The taxpayers expect the equipment that is bought with their money to be used for its inteded purpose. Eventhough we as volunteers received increases in stipend, AND YES PEOPLE VOLUNTEERS GET PAID A MINIMUM OF $175 A MONTH FOR “VOLUNTEERING” ALL THE WAY UPTO $500, the career firemen did not receive any pay increase. The volunteer fire association is not responsible in any way for helping balancing the budget, as a matter of fact the association was responsible for ordering equipment and refurbishing old equipment that we as volunteers absolutely did not need.
As a long time FF within Escambia County that knows much more than I intend to say, I want to share some thoughts. First let me say that I agree with some in that there should not be an increase until all spending is brought under control. Spending has been out of control since the second County Fire Chief was appointed and the Fire Association no longer had the majority input on budget issues. The Association is made up of the volunteer chiefs that only have the overall fire protection at heart and not a personal stake, other than being taxpayers themselves. As long as the Association had the greater input, the department was in the black, replaced trucks as needed, scheduled station construction and renovations, and still kept a sizable contingency fund for emergencies. Subsequent Chiefs have not been as frugal with the funds. We now have a new Chief and we all need to give him a fair chance to get spending under control. He has only had a few short months to get the feel for things and he should be about ready to make some changes. Let’s wait and see before passing judgment.
Sandra: it has not always been the case and is still not the case in many areas, but the volunteers in Escambia County are held to very strict training standards. Many of the volunteers have many years experience as well as formal training. A career FF has somewhere in the neighborhood of 550 to 600 hours of training when he/she graduates from the academy. This is good training, but it cannot replace experience until they gain their own experience. I personally had over 500 hours documented fire training in 2010. So your training and standards statement is off base.
Some have commented on why should north end taxpayers pay for south end costs. Most of the funds collected are in the south end. In the north end, only in Century are enough funds collected in a single district to fund daily operations, not including trucks, buildings, and salaries for the career personnel that man the station during the day shift M-F. The other districts do not collect enough to cover daily operations. When the MSBU was first instituted, all FDs (countywide) agreed to fund fire protection county wide and not by area, so that all citizens could get the best protection possible. So if all areas were funded with monies from the respective districts, the smaller stations would not be able to operate and the larger more commercial districts would be hunting ways to spend the funds.
We have a good program that has some issues. We have a lot of good people working tirelessly to make it better. These people are from the career and volunteer ranks. There are some personnel that are not getting with the program, but again, think we need to give Chief Spillman a chance to make the needed changes. I think, even with the problems that exist, we have excellent fire protection in Escambia County and I think we are going to make it better for you, the citizens that support us.
ms sandra..that blanket characterization of our volunteer firefighters was a bit rude….im offended and im not even a firefighter….i certainly do appreciate the efforts of the volunteers.
I will gladly give more if it all goes to my fire departments, Molino and Mcdavid.
Hey, to Sandra,I am a vol firefighter/engineer with ECFR, we are held to the same standards at career firefighters we have to have to same training to be a unified department. For you information 80% of your so called “LOGGERS” are common working, responsible 18- 40 year old people,not just rednecks that want to have fun. We do this to help the county that everybody resides in. We do this in sacrifice to our friends, family and lives, I and totally for career firefighting, bit our county can’t sustain that pay load. Which would you rather have 40 career firefighters and no vol. Or 40 career with 400 vol. I personally choose opt.2. I just wanted to say that we are all in this together as a team we are all trained the same, we have training once a week, every week. We work very hard.
Having received help from our fire department on more than one occassion, I will gladly pay the extra money, even if I have to cut back on something else! They do a great job and are a wonderful bunch of people doing a hard job! Thank you all!!!
Ensley Fire Department does nothing to help the people living in North Escambia. Why should we have to fund those firefighters?
Having a professional firefighter waiting at my beck and call at a station instead of some fifty year old logger with a pager at his house is a no brainer…..I’ll gladly pay the ten dollars extra for the safety and security of knowing i have a career firefighter who has been trained to strict state standards and gets training every shift.
People,I did my homework and found that the increase in MSBU is not only to fund career firemen, it is very much providing the funding for all the fire stations and sub stations, mainly the ones in the north end who spend more money on fuel, pagers, and staff vehicles than any other area within the county. The five dollar increase is long overdue when compared to our surrounding counties. There are just not enough volunteers to staff the firehouses that protect our districts, employees are not allowed to leave work to run calls like they used to. The latest brush fires in the north end including century and flomaton prove that stations south of nine mile also respond to protect the people in the north end. That there should be better oversight on the money collected through MSBU is a fact, poor management in the past has been responsible for unnecessary purchases of equipment and other items. All I know that as a parent and homeowner I want the best protection for my family and property. Seems like $85 is a pretty good deal for having firemen and EMT’s respond. I guess it’s just a priority thing……………..
RE: Been There.
I’ve been there too. I was a volunteer fire Lieutenant.
I agree, there must be strict oversight. If they keep
getting the MSBU increases, they will keep spending
then putting their snouts back into the trough for more!
I’d hate to see career guys (who are needed in stations
like 13 P’cola Beach) push loyal volunteers out of the fire
service as what hapened in Sta 3 (Brent).
should be put to a vote. i dont favor funding ensleys fire dept. their tax base within the city should fund it. taxes are constantly going up. it has got to stop. these folks need to tighten their belts just like the rest of us.
Listen, I was in the volunteer fire service for years and an officer which dealt with budget issues all the time. Everyone says ok lets give them the 5 dollars they are worth it. Well yes they are, but here is the problem.
The county ran paid fire service has plenty of money to run the system and add paid firemen the problem is lack of oversight spending. They are well over half a million ( 500,00) dollars over budget in overtime alone. Instead of setting up a mechanical shop to do pm’s on equipment they hire it out at outrageous prices.
Oh bye the way they are slowly removing the volunteers from service by making all kind of certifications for firefighting. Don’t get me wrong they need the training but we have firemen that have more hands on firefighting than these guys will probably ever see, but they cannot fight fire because they didn’t attend the classes. Heck these guys could teach the classes.
I predict you will be paying $250 dollars MSBU on property taxes in less than 10 years because it will be all paid and they cannot manage a budget. It all starts with 5 dollars so you wont complain. Don’t say i didn’t warn you