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Escambia Ups County Fire Tax $15 Per Year To Staff South-End Stations
July 24, 2015
Escambia County homeowners outside the city of Pensacola will pay an extra $15 per year for fire services, with the money going toward paid firefighters bolstering the ranks at fire stations in the south-end of the county.
The Escambia County Commission voted 3-1, with Steven Barry against and Lumon May absent, to add the $15, increasing the fire tax for the average homeowner from $85 to $100 beginning with the next fiscal year.
The proceeds from the extra $15 per year municipal services benefit unit assessment (MSBU) will fund 24/7 paid firefighters at the Ferry Pass and West Pensacola fire stations, with 12 firefighters assigned per station.
The board also voted to hire another dozen firefighters using reserve funds. They will either fully staff the Myrtle Grove fire station or be split between Myrtle Grove, Innerarity Point and Bellview. The final staffing decision will be made by Fire Chief Pat Grace and Public Safety Director Michael Weaver.
The Ferry Pass, Bellview, Innerarity Point, Myrtle Grove and West Pensacola stations have recorded volunteers missing a large number of calls for service, between 10 and 60 percent of fire calls, according to county data.
Two commissioners, Doug Underhill and Wilson Robertson, lobbied Thursday night for a $30 per year increase which would have funded full-time paid firefighter coverage at all five stations when coupled with reserve funds.
The county will continue to use available volunteer firefighters at all fire stations. North of Nine Mile Road, the Cantonment fire station is staffed 24/7 by paid crews, while the Century fire station has a paid crew of three firefighters on duty from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Volunteers are on call the remainder of the day at the Century fire station and all-day at the McDavid, Walnut Hill, Molino and Beulah stations.
Pictured top and inset: A fully involved house fire battled by volunteers on Highway 97 in Davisville. NorthEscambia.com file photos, click to enlarge. Pictured below: Five Escambia County fire station, in priority order, in need of staffing. It would cost each homeowner in the county $7.50 per year to full staff each fire station.
Comments
33 Responses to “Escambia Ups County Fire Tax $15 Per Year To Staff South-End Stations”
This is laughable at best……. The West Pensacola Station has 20 members and a building that was flooded and took over a year to fixed. County officials knew of the damage and sat on rears and did nothing to fix the problem. Members run calls but when you are left in squalor and filth people do not want to be in those conditions! the IAFF Union has their agenda Chief Grace has his own. Learn facts before believing the people that are in charge.
To sw citizen, you live in the “pleasant grove” area of escambia COUNTY. Pensacola, the CITY of, has no interactions with thr COUNTY. They have their funds amd resources the county has theirs. You have a 24/7 ALS engine that serves your area. Advanced Life Support, like an ambulance but can’t transport a patient. And as far as the Navy responding to the county, all hay can change with a change of command of the base. And the Navy doesn’t get any incentive to respond, in other words, no compensation monetary or otherwise.
Sis, nobody is being thrown under the bus, if there is no response to calls that are dispatched then what’s the point of having a statiin with engines and equipment that doesn’t respond? If the data supports the actions of the station it wou
D be foolishness for the BOCC to not man those stations. And as far as the fact they are volunteering goes, they get paid as well. A colunteer is a person whom provides a service for free. By the way, a number of the paid on call firemen work as firemen at other depts and are members of an IAFF local. And how would you feel if you lived in a district wih little to no response from your local station.
And the msbu is budgeted where the need is according to the BOCC, Public Safety Director and Fire Chief not the union. Please investigate the facts before going off on amy side of the issue. There is a brotherhood but that doesn’t pit out fires or anything else for that matter.
Any house fire in Escambia county is going to deplete at least 4 surrounding fire stations. That house fire isn’t getting 4 trucks from the same station. its a community effort or at least its supposed to be. and just when things are going good…the union throws the vollys under the bus bc they aren’t there. Same old story different date. Until our union stops slamming our vollys and persuading our glorious local tv station to report half the story, we remain doomed. way to go brotherhood!
@a resident of SW Escambia County. From your description of where you live, it sounds like you live in the warrington area which, if I remember correctly, was fully staffed with a paid crew several years ago. That would mean that you do in fact benefit from county tax increases because your station would not be leaving to cover a volunteer district Like west pensacola or myrtle grove that isn’t responding to calls.
Sorry, but i was born and raised here and i just can’t recall the last forest fire up here that warranted Pensacola FF to come.
I sympathize with all yall living in the Northern part of Escambia County. I live in the SW part of Escambia County, NOT in the city limits so I have NO benefits FROM Pensacola either.
Having said that, Myrtle Grove and Innerarity Point DEFINITELY do NOT get ANY benefits from Pensacola either. West Pensacola I’m 70% sure is NOT in the city limits either and the other 2 remaining areas of Escambia County I’m really not sure but I don’t think they are in the City limits either.
I live less than 2 miles from the front gate to the Naval base so I’m not IN any of those areas but we do have a fire station here that has mostly Volunteers working there. If there are not enough FF’s available when needed, the base sends THEIR FF’s and equipment to the fire. We don’t benefit from the COUNTY TAX INCREASE either, but we gotta pay it.
Now think about this for a moment… if there’s a “forest” fire up in the Northern part of Escambia County, ALL of the fire stations will have their FF’s and equipment up there fighting that fire. At some point in time, we ALL will need a fire department to help us out in some way, shape or form. I just bite my tongue, usually, and pay up because ONE DAY, I’m gonna need them, maybe from another part of the county too.
God Bless America!!
im so tired of this wasteful crap
First thing ( Ben ) firefighters paid,vol,retired ar all ” professional ” as you say. People all the time degrade and talk down to vollys because they think we have a lack of knowledge of our job. The vollys have just as much knowledge if not more than any paid firefighter. With that bein said i have seen some of the Escambia professional Paid Firefighters do some stupid stuff like try to run a scene 25 miles away. Anyway back to the subject at hand you people are talking about the tax and poor vol numbers but here is my biggest question WHY DONT YOU COME VOLUNTEER ?
***Jeremy Sasser
Bob C., it has nothing to do with the tax cuts. All the Fire Houses mentioned have a poor volunteer turn out. That’s why they are putting paid Fire Fighters in.
The county is hiring all of the volunteers….thus poor volunteer turnout. Its poor business and until someone realizes the root cause, MORE TAX. They are already in the process of increasing taxes at least $30 more dollars next year. Sad thing is, the volunteers have to pay that tax as well. Way to go BOCC!!! hip hip hooray!
The fire stations in question are the largest in the county so what does that mean for the smaller ones that aren’t in question? Can you see what is about to happen? Full paid staffing at all stations. Say goodbye to the volunteers until the county bankrupts itself. No one is taking into consideration what happens when these firefighters start retiring…where are we going to get the funds to pay for those benefits????? Or when are we going to have to hire more chief officers to keep all these new hires in check????? hmmmmm…..
I think the raise in fire tax should been voted on by the citizens.Or pull half the county commission salary.the hole county going to crap
@J. Larry Seal
Great idea, and in the case of living in the north end, a fantastic place to live. As a people, we get the better deal. As govt. Escambia wins. SR would never because of their revenue south of I-10.
Okay
At least 4 fifths of this money will come from the south end much as when dirt roads get paved in the north end. They probably don’t care about dirt roads up here. Everyone pays on something they’re not going to use or be helped by.
Just how it is.
Bob C., it has nothing to do with the tax cuts. All the Fire Houses mentioned have a poor volunteer turn out. That’s why they are putting paid Fire Fighters in.
I dont like paying more taxes BUT when you need them (fire or ems ) what price do you put on their services it would appear the c c are going to nickle and dime us to death and yes it is cheaper to live in the north end i have lived and owned property in both and there is no way i will go back to P COLA if i can help it
EMD “It is not right to make people pay for service they do not get.”….
Yeah….sorta like me paying for birth control when I’m 70 years old.
Thank you Mr. Barry. It is a rare thing, indeed” for an elected representative to actually represent the people who elected them nowadays.
It is not right to make people pay for service they do not get. Why do the ones that are the farther-est away have to pay for the ones who will receive the benefits when they will not? If there is a valid “good” reason, perhaps a clear explanation would soothe ruffled feathers. A failure to clearly communicate is what causes most problems.
Here is a something to ponder! Why not tax the people who will benefit from the fire service and not the ones whose house will burn.
You may (or not) remember, back several months ago when Rick Scott was talking about the Tax-Cuts he wanted that there was mention of the State increasing the property assessment to help make up for the loss of revenue due to cuts.
Not much makes progress without money and that money comes from us Taxpayers.
So…none of us should be surprised to hear the property assessments are going up all across the state.
$15.00 per month to better protect my home and to give more jobs locally is a very reasonable price to pay.
Putting it in perspective that $15 is about the cost of 3 six-packs of cheap beer or less than a carton of cigarettes.
It seems that some folks are under the impression that the north end of the county is pulling the weight for Pensacola. In reality, the City of Pensacola has an outstanding fire department staffed with professional firefighters. This increase is only for the county because the residents of the city of Pensacola pays dearly for this invaluable service through the city property tax assessment. If you want to howl in financial pain, I suggest you move to the City of Pensacola where the services are excellent, but we pay dearly for it. You get what you pay for!
Lets not forget all of the county roads in the north end that get funded by tax dollars from the south end, or the drainage projects, etc. It works both ways. We all have to pay for stuff we don’t use occasionally.
Didn’t we just have an increase a couple years ago for the same reason? Went from $75 to $85. What happened to that $$$? I understand the need for paid firefighters but not a full house. If they hadn’t messed with the volunteers stipend maybe they could get more volunteers. Let Pensacola pay. How does this benefit us in the northend?
The problem lies in respect. Most
folks on the north don’t care about the
south or west end of the county.
A simple solution would be for Escambia
and Santa Rosa county to swap land.
Everything north of nine mile road would become
Santa Rosa and Escambia would get Gulf Breeze.
Well Luman, I guess that’s called Plausible Deniability.
“If you can’t annex ‘em, TAX ‘EM!” Pensacola has been trying for YEARS to scoop us up in a one county government kind of thing – from North Escambia to North Pensacola, in other words. We have fought them and fought them. Now they vote to tax people who have NO benefit of the services they provide. I am not sure that is constitutional.
I had my doubts about Mr. Barry. We in the FAR north end have ALWAYS been under-represented. This time, though, I will tip my hat to him and say, “Thank you, Mr. Barry, for thinking of us – YOUR CONSTITUENTS!”
North gets nothing again this has to be remembered at voting time and as much as Beulah is growing they are forgot about often.
Maybe it is time for District 5 to break away and become a new county?!
90% of the population lives in the south end of the county, so of course they’re going to get the most firefighters. You can’t expect a lot of services for sparsely populated areas, it’s like this everywhere.
Don’t forget the millage rate increase that’ll be coming. The county can’t be content with its annual property value increases to fund operations; all they want is more, more, more!
The North end gets the short end of the fire hose.
Doug Underhill and Wilson Robertson, Two names to remember when election time comes. Vote them out!
We just got hosed AGAIN!!! Taxation without representation.
Here we go again. Make the north end of the county support Pensacola. Where are our paid firefighters? Where are our ECAT buses? Yet they expect us to pay for them in Pensacola.