MoCo Board of Commissioners weighs potential fire department consolidation

The Montgomery County Board of Commissioners reviewed information for a potential consolidation of local fire departments during their monthly work session on Nov. 5 in Mount Vernon.

According to Board Chair Ginger Morris, while the board did review information regarding a potential consolidation, no action regarding the matter would be taken during the work session or the board’s Nov. 9 regular meeting.

“I would like to remind everybody: this is a discussion for information on a variety of topics, but it’s just so the board can be informed and start thinking about,” said Morris. “No votes taken today, none will be taken Monday, and we don’t know what the timeline will look like, but it is for the five commissioners to be able to hear from different people and make informed decisions for the citizens.”

Discussions regarding consolidation stemmed from an audit performed by county officials regarding insurance payments made to local fire departments. 

According to EMA Director Tristan Willis, the county has contracts with six local municipalities’ fire departments to pay $13,000 to each for fire protection. In addition, the county covers 100 percent of the municipalities’ building and equipment insurance costs, 100 percent of their worker’s compensation and 75 percent of PTSD and cancer policy costs, adding approximately $60,000 to the county’s payments.

The insurance for these municipalities is handled by an independent organization known as the Montgomery County Fire Chief’s Association. However, when performing an audit, county officials found fire trucks had been added or removed to the insurance without their knowledge.

“So, what has kind of got us looking into this is the county has been paying bills for the insurance, has been paying bills for trucks to be added with no understanding or no transparency that they were being added in the first place,” said Willis.

According to Willis, at least four fire trucks have been “sold, salvaged, what have you” by the municipalities while still being paid for by the county. Consolidation – bringing the various municipalities under one county umbrella – could serve to give the county a greater awareness of the finances of the local fire departments.

However, County Commissioner Amie Vassey suggested the issue resulted from administrative errors from the previous county manager rather than active maliciousness from the municipalities, which would make consolidation a drastic measure to an issue which could be resolved by improved auditing.

“To me, that sounds like an administrative error, not necessarily anything egregious or nefarious on behalf of our departments, and so my question is, to find something like that, it seems like a pretty severe move to say, ‘Well, let’s just build our own fire department,’ over something like this as opposed to just addressing that administrative audit process,” said Vassey.

Willis said an alternative to consolidation could be making alterations to the in-place agreements with the municipalities, only covering two trucks per department and requiring them to reimburse the county for 25 percent of worker’s compensation payments. According to Willis, this would be a more substantial change than consolidation, as the county’s financial relationship with the municipalities already resembles consolidation.

“In the grand scheme of things, the county has already consolidated as a fire service,” said Willis. “The only thing that we don’t have is a name.”

The board also heard from Randy Toms, executive director the Georgia Firefighter Standards and Training Council, on the matter of consolidation. Toms said the benefits of consolidations were not monetary, but rather the increase in service quality across the area.

“I’m saying it would be a beginning of a continuing growth,” said Toms. “As you’re growing, you’re getting in businesses, you’re getting in manufacturers, whatever you get into this area, you’re going to take that and invest back into your fire service, but you’ll have a base to build from.”