Townships increase offer on fire contract
By
Brandy Chandler-brandychandler@gmail.com
Townships increase offer on fire contract
By BRANDY CHANDLER
The Highland County Press
Area townships negotiating fire service contracts with the city of Hillsboro have upped their offer of an increase of 10 percent for 2011 to 12 percent.
Highland County Prosecutor Jim Grandey, who is legal counsel for Hamer, Jackson, Liberty, New Market, Paint, Penn and Washington townships, is negotiating the contract with city representatives.
“The townships haven’t actually voted on it yet,” Grandey said. “We floated out to them a 12-percent increase. We haven’t heard back from them.”
During council’s regular session on Sept. 13, council met for nearly an hour in executive session discussing the contract.
Council did not comment in open session regarding the contracts.
Grandey said he is not certain what the next step would be if the city rejects the 12-percent offer.
“That is up to the various townships,” Grandey said. “We have been talking about different alternatives. Nothing is in stone yet. Each township will have to decide what they want to do.”
In May, council voted to authorize Hillsboro Safety and Service Director Ralph Holt to negotiate the new contracts with the townships.
During the Aug. 9 council meeting, Grandey and township trustees addressed council saying that they could not affording the increases without putting on levies.
The townships have said the increases in the fire contracts are between 42 percent and 76.34 percent. The matter was put in council’s finance committee and street and safety committee for review.
The committees met Aug. 25, where Grandey offered a 10-percent increase to the contracts with the option to negotiate for 2012-15. Grandey said that
as the contracts stand, the townships cannot afford to pay for the increases.
Additionally, he said a portion of the new contracts would have the townships paying for EMS services, which Grandey said is not legal unless
the townships have a separate fire and EMS levy, or the fire levy included EMS services.
The meeting ended with council members saying they would work numbers and that they would meet again.
No public meetings have been held since Aug. 25, but Pence said that the negotiations have continued.
“We’re going to have to make some type of decision,” Dave Shoemaker, a member of council’s finance committee, said Wednesday. “The townships and the city are going to have to come together before Dec. 31 – that’s all the contract is good to. I don’t know what the magic number is on either side of the equation.”
Shoemaker said that the city is running numbers to see what figure they could accept that the city can afford to keep up with the expense of
providing the fire and EMS services outside the city, including equipment, supply, personnel and building costs.
“We have to have (a certain amount) in order to pay our bills,”
Shoemaker said. “And we feel for (the townships), the fact that they have to look to the taxpayers to have a levy put on to cover the costs.
“However, they did have this information in May, and they also had the contracts in June. So if they wanted to have something on the ballot, they could have had in on the ballot in a timely manner.”
Finance committee chairperson Peter Pence said that Hillsboro Law Director Fred Beery and Hillsboro Safety and Service Director Ralph Holt are
handling the negotiations.
To his knowledge, Pence said, no decisions have yet been made this week regarding the negotiations.
“All I can say right now is that council and the finance committee are still in the process of working with the auditor in trying to hammer out numbers to play out different scenarios to see where certain increases to the fire contracts put us,” Pence said.
“We’re basically trying to make educated decisions on what we can and can’t do. We certainly appreciate the townships’ willingness to work with us, but right now we’re trying to deal with what we can and can’t do – rather, what we can and can’t afford.”
During the Aug. 25 meeting, Grandey said that the current contracts bring the city an estimated $191,000, and they are offering an additional 10
percent on top of that. If the city can’t work with the townships, he said, that is $191,000 the city will not have.
Pence said it was projected that the city would collect around $700,000 for EMS runs, but ended up only taking in around $400,000, and that is a burden the citizens “should not have to bear.”
Area townships negotiating fire service contracts with the city of Hillsboro have upped their offer of an increase of 10 percent for 2011 to 12 percent.
Highland County Prosecutor Jim Grandey, who is legal counsel for Hamer, Jackson, Liberty, New Market, Paint, Penn and Washington townships, is negotiating the contract with city representatives.
“The townships haven’t actually voted on it yet,” Grandey said. “We floated out to them a 12-percent increase. We haven’t heard back from them.”
During council’s regular session on Sept. 13, council met for nearly an hour in executive session discussing the contract.
Council did not comment in open session regarding the contracts.
Grandey said he is not certain what the next step would be if the city rejects the 12-percent offer.
“That is up to the various townships,” Grandey said. “We have been talking about different alternatives. Nothing is in stone yet. Each township will have to decide what they want to do.”
In May, council voted to authorize Hillsboro Safety and Service Director Ralph Holt to negotiate the new contracts with the townships.
During the Aug. 9 council meeting, Grandey and township trustees addressed council saying that they could not affording the increases without putting on levies.
The townships have said the increases in the fire contracts are between 42 percent and 76.34 percent. The matter was put in council’s finance committee and street and safety committee for review.
The committees met Aug. 25, where Grandey offered a 10-percent increase to the contracts with the option to negotiate for 2012-15. Grandey said that as the contracts stand, the townships cannot afford to pay for the increases.
Additionally, he said a portion of the new contracts would have the townships paying for EMS services, which Grandey said is not legal unless the townships have a separate fire and EMS levy, or the fire levy included EMS services.
The meeting ended with council members saying they would work numbers and that they would meet again.
No public meetings have been held since Aug. 25, but Pence said that the negotiations have continued.
“We’re going to have to make some type of decision,” Dave Shoemaker, a member of council’s finance committee, said Wednesday. “The townships and the city are going to have to come together before Dec. 31 – that’s all the contract is good to. I don’t know what the magic number is on either side of the equation.”
Shoemaker said that the city is running numbers to see what figure they could accept that the city can afford to keep up with the expense of providing the fire and EMS services outside the city, including equipment, supply, personnel and building costs.
“We have to have (a certain amount) in order to pay our bills,” Shoemaker said. “And we feel for (the townships), the fact that they have to look to the taxpayers to have a levy put on to cover the costs.
“However, they did have this information in May, and they also had the contracts in June. So if they wanted to have something on the ballot, they could have had in on the ballot in a timely manner.”
Finance committee chairperson Peter Pence said that Hillsboro Law Director Fred Beery and Hillsboro Safety and Service Director Ralph Holt are handling the negotiations.
To his knowledge, Pence said, no decisions have yet been made this week regarding the negotiations.
“All I can say right now is that council and the finance committee are still in the process of working with the auditor in trying to hammer out numbers to play out different scenarios to see where certain increases to the fire contracts put us,” Pence said.
“We’re basically trying to make educated decisions on what we can and can’t do. We certainly appreciate the townships’ willingness to work with us, but right now we’re trying to deal with what we can and can’t do – rather, what we can and can’t afford.”
During the Aug. 25 meeting, Grandey said that the current contracts bring the city an estimated $191,000, and they are offering an additional 10 percent on top of that. If the city can’t work with the townships, he said, that is $191,000 the city will not have.
Pence said it was projected that the city would collect around $700,000 for EMS runs, but ended up only taking in around $400,000, and that is a burden the citizens “should not have to bear.”
[[In-content Ad]]