By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            Acting on the advice of their attorney, Chiefland City Commissioners have agreed to invite all the municipal fire chiefs in Levy County to meet as a group for a discussion of the financial challenges they face responding to calls in the rural areas of the county.

            City fire departments are assigned to districts that include the city in which they are based and unincorporated areas outside their municipal boundaries. The rural coverage areas in some cases appear to be growing in size and draining the resources of city departments like Chiefland.

            The Chiefland City Commission wants to keep things friendly in dealing with the county commission on funding issues, but at the same time. the county has fallen behind Chiefland by more than $100,000 in total funding for Chiefland Fire Rescue.

            Capt. John Lake, speaking on behalf of Fire Chief Dwayne King at the most recent commission meeting, said fire and medical calls in the city, and outside the city boundaries, are about equal. In other words, the city fire department responds to roughly the same number of calls in the county as in the city with slight variations from year to year.

            Bumping Up County Fire Funding?

            The question is whether the county commission should try to provide enough additional funding, about $100,000, to match what Chiefland provides for its own department, or leave the financial inequity issue alone to keep the peace with county commissioners. Chiefland wants to address the issue through a joint effort with other city departments.

            Chiefland’s fire department records indicate that 90 percent of the calls the city responds to are considered first responder calls, many of them medical calls, fender bender accidents, or more serious wrecks on the highways, not just fires. Each time the fire truck or smaller squad truck responds to medical calls it costs the department time and money.

            The city is also facing the problem of having to cover all of the calls, medical and fire, in Fowlers Bluff because the county doesn’t have a full-time fire department there. The city also responds to all the fire and medical calls in Otter Creek, which also doesn’t have a fire department. Otter Creek pays Chiefland $5,700 annually to take care of its fire and medical calls. The tiny city in the center of Levy County hasn’t responded to Chiefland’s request to discuss the possibility of paying more money for fire coverage.

            County Gave 15 Percent Increase

            Last year the county commission gave all the city fire departments an increase in their funding level of 15 percent across the board. The funding increase avoided the perception that some departments were being shown favoritism over others, but it also resulted in the county falling behind in funding for Chiefland and possibly other departments.

            The gap between Chiefland and the county resulted mainly from the Chiefland City Commission adopting a fire assessment tax which boosted the city’s contribution to its fire department significantly, but the county didn’t try to match the city dollar for dollar with a similar increase for the city last year.

            King said one of the topics he wants to discuss with the county is how to define mutual aid. He said in situations where the city responds to Fowlers Bluff and Otter Creek that have no fire department but need the city’s assistance, those cities can’t provide mutual aid back to Chiefland because neither city has a fire department.

            What is Mutual Aid?

            “I think the chief wants mutual aid to be more defined. Specifically, we don’t feel what’s happening in Fowlers Bluff is mutual aid because there’s no one there,” said Commissioner Lewrissa Johns. “Mutual aid happens if that station has firefighters and they are out on a call, then we would come to help, but when there’s no one there, now it goes back to the contract.”

            The county’s contract with cities is about a decade old and Chiefland feels the situation on the ground has changed considerably over the past 10 years. The city’s position is the contract needs to be reworked.

            City Attorney Norm Fugate said Chiefland is not the only municipality with these issues. He believes all the cities are “in a similar boat.”

            Banding Together

            “I think you’re going to have more of a chance of success if the municipalities that are affected will come together,” Fugate said.

            Commissioner Norman Weaver noted the city commission had been told in an earlier meeting that the county closed one fire department because it couldn’t afford to operate it. Fugate responded that the issue for the county commission isn’t a lack of money to operate county fire stations.

            “They have all the resources they need. The issue is the county has a hard time finding the firefighters to man those stations and it’s cheaper for them to use Chiefland or Williston or Cedar Key to respond to those calls. It’s cheaper for them to pay us what they’re paying us to go to Fowlers Bluff, than to man a station down there. That’s really where we are,” Fugate said.

            When the contract was first written, Fugate said mutual aid meant the city would come to the aid of Fowlers Bluff when that fire department needed assistance.

            “It’s turned into we’re the sole responder to that area and maybe Cedar Key may help out in Fowlers Bluff, but it’s going on all over the county,” Fugate said. “The other part is they do have money. The (county commission) has a lot of money since they started putting on the fire assessment on a county basis and putting aside money every year. They have well over a million dollars just sitting there in reserves (for fire). It’s not just redefining mutual aid it’s re-evaluating what they pay us. I think it would behoove the fire chief to join together with other fire chiefs and make a combined effort and now is the time to do it – we’re coming into the budget season.”

            Commissioners agreed by consensus to instruct City Manager Laura Cain to contact King and ask him to call for a joint meeting of all the fire chiefs to discuss county fire funding.

            How Big is County Fire Department?

            As it stands now, a portion of the county commission’s fire department consists of dual-certified paramedics and EMTs working as firefighters when they are not delivering patients to hospitals. They carry bunker gear in the ambulances but they don’t carry water on ambulances to fight fires nor do they drive water tanker trucks. Their primary duty is to assist municipal fire departments when they are free to do so. The EMTs and paramedics seem to enjoy the firefighting work. They are paid extra to be certified firefighters. The county has also provided full-time fire coverage for the busy Morriston fire and EMS station and the county provides some coverage in Fowlers Bluff but not nearly enough.

            Mayor Chris Jones made it clear that the city can’t stand on its own without county commission funding for Chiefland Fire Rescue. He wants to approach the county in a positive and productive manner. The county says it doesn’t have the funding at this point to create full-time fire departments at all the volunteer stations that have closed down or mostly closed down – Otter Creek, Gulf Hammock, Fowlers Bluff, and Rosewood. The county depends on cities to cover calls in those areas and it pays the cities through its county fire assessment tax.

            Fowlers Bluff has a nice fire station and firefighting equipment, but the county provides firefighters only during the daylight hours when it can spare the overtime for fire coverage, according to Lake. On the other hand, Chiefland is dispatched to every call in Fowlers Bluff. Otter Creek doesn’t have a fire department. It’s only fire truck, a 1950s or ’60s model, according to Lake, had flat tires the last time he saw it.

            Chiefland and Cedar Key’s coverage areas, if they were combined (and they are not combined), would extend all the way from Chiefland and Otter Creek westward to the Gulf of Mexico. Chiefland’s District 7 also extends halfway to Bronson and Fanning Springs and to the subdivisions along Manatee Springs Road. All active city departments respond to mutual aid calls. They help each other out when called upon.

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City of Chiefland Regular Meeting March 13, 2021; Posted March 20, 2021