Feb. 28—With fires raging in the Texas panhandle this week and smoke traveling the long distance to Stillwater, it is coincidental timing that City Councilors heard a presentation Monday that takes a look at how the City handles fire in the rural areas of city limits and those costs.
While rural Stillwater has a number of volunteer fire departments, the Stillwater Fire Department, which falls under the umbrella of city services provided by the City to residents, has a large chunk of rural areas it is responsible for responding to, said Fire Chief Terry Essary.
Currently those who live in Stillwater proper are not billed for calls from the Fire Department.
But it works differently for those in the rural areas of the City, who can opt into a “rural fire membership” program and pay an annual fee for the insurance of reduced costs of fire services bill (responses to a brush fire, burn fire that got out of hand, structure fire, etc.) should it be incurred.
The annual fee is currently $100, and has not increased since the program was rolled out in 2008.
Property owners who are members, whether commercial or residential, pay the same annual fee.
With membership, the minimum charge by the Fire Department responding to a call is $500 — in addition to the annual fee — but the overall bill is “capped” at a maximum of $2,000 even if the services, personnel and equipment cost much more.
Service, personnel and equipment are billed at hourly rates once on site.
For rural area property owners who do not have a membership, their bill is not capped and these people are responsible to pay it, Essery said.
The highest bill he has seen for a non-member needing fire services was $6,000, he said.
“Sometimes insurance will cover some of that.”
But overall, the property owner is responsible for the remainder, if not all of that bill.
“There are 5,000 potential customers in our district outside of the city limits,” said Essery.
“We sell only about 1,000 memberships and the subscription monies go straight to helping fund equipment (purchases and maintenance).”
With the City growing and new areas being developed, the City and Fire Department thought it best to look at the rural fire fee structure and its membership program now, alongside the costs of personnel services and equipment maintenance, in order to stay current with being able to provide the safety and service level in the future that it currently does, Essery said.
The firm NewGen Strategies & Solutions was hired to examine these realities, ask the hard questions and make recommendations on the future of fire services in Stillwater’s rural areas in what is called, “The Stillwater Rural Fire Fee Study.”
According to the study and presentation delivered by NewGen CEO and President Dave Yanke, the initial result of the study is to generate discussion as to whether the current membership fee program works and if changes should be made to increase fees, change the structure, incentivize the program, grow membership or do nothing at all.
The study’s results did find that increasing membership fees, enrolling more members and incentivizing the program to bring in more members, could increase revenues for the department. The firm proposed service and equipment fee increases over several years, as well.
The numbers in this study are hypothetical at this time, and results of this study are “informational only,” said Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce.
The bottom line, Yanke said, is how can the City keep up with expenses and should it be generating more revenue to keep up with costs?
It appears, from the study and the presentation, if the annual fee was increased, and membership increased, the monies earned would help the Fire Department break even.
“You’re not making money on this,” Yanke said.
“I agree (with the findings),” said Essary. “It’s simply keeping up with the times, maintenance, equipment, pay and people.”
If the fees are raised, though, people do not have to join.
“We are sensitive to cost increases. Everything is costing more these days and it’s really difficult,” Essary said.
“But being a rural fire services member is good for residents and the Fire Department,” he said. Most of the time it saves members money if they need fire services, and it helps the fire department be able to fund those services.
“Those same cost challenges that have increased for everyone have increased for us, as well. Fire engines and equipment are now more expensive, too, and we would like to ensure we have the revenue to provide the same high level of service and safety,” Essary said.
“As the City grows we have to make sure we’re not left behind and we have to make sure we’re on the right trajectory to fund what we are required to do.”
City council will have the ultimate say in the way forward, and likely nothing will be done about this until 2025 or beyond, Essary said. They may choose some parts of the proposal, and not others.
“A lot of discussions will have to take place.”
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