A helping hand for first responders

A story that was featured recently in the Appalachian News-Express spotlights an ever-present need that Pike County fire departments have, and that is a need for enough funds to stay operational. This story, which tells of the efforts of Pike County firefighters to have a law enacted that would allow them to recover expenses incurred whenever they respond to a vehicle accident, is as good a witness as there is to a sad fact, and that is this: First responders are not only the Good Samaritans who volunteer to be there in time of need of their fellow citizens, they are the Good Samaritans who are expected to buy the gas needed to get aid to those in distress, then to have had the training necessary to render whatever aid that might be needed, all done on their own time, and, to top it all off, they have to raise whatever money might be needed for the necessary equipment and supplies to render that aid. This, incidentally, is in addition to getting enough money to pay the utility bills each month. All in all, it makes you wonder why anybody would bother.

Pike County is as progressive a county as any in the state of Kentucky. It has led the way in innovative government in many areas, most notably, perhaps, in enacting a solid waste ordinance that has tackled a problem long ignored statewide. And it was this county, under Wayne T., that came up with a source of revenue for coal producing counties in the severance tax, a tax that is now funding a wide variety of programs all across the state’s coalfields. Why, then, can’t Pike County be the first to have a county-wide fire department? Think about it, if there was an organization that could collect a reasonable tax on our citizens to provide adequate fire protection to all areas of the county, then a huge burden would be lifted from the shoulders of our first responders, and, in turn, these first responders could devote more time to developing those life-saving skills that few of our citizens ever think about, until such time as they are needed.

First of all, let me define what would be a reasonable tax. Tax is now, always has, and always will be a dirty word, at least to the politicians who must propose, and then collect them. But it is taxes that provide for roads and road improvement, and services such as the law enforcement agencies that keep us secure in our day-to-day lives. So why not have a tax that would provide our volunteer fire departments funds that would pay their utility bills, or, say, take care of the costly maintenance for the vehicles each uses in performance of their primary missions. If, as in the case of the county’s Solid Waste department, every household paid their fair share of these expenses, then it shouldn’t be too much for anybody to bear. It is, after all, the mandatory participation clause of the county’s solid waste ordinance, that has made this program successful.

Fire departments have no real authority to collect funds in this manner. Until quite recently, most departments used any number of fund-raising efforts to raise enough to keep going from month to month. Some used bingo games. Others would use the old-fashioned roadblock each month whenever the power and telephone bills came due. The best thing that Pike County fire departments have going for them now is a state law that allows each to charge what is called a subscription fee from everyone in their service area. This fee is set at, if I am not mistaken, $25.00 per year for each residential household, and at $50.00 per year for businesses. This amount of money would be a positive boon, if it weren’t for the fact that the fee is voluntary. But the fee is a volunteer one, and, just as fire insurance is kind of like a bet that you will someday have a fire, until you have one, it isn’t needed, and many look at this fee in the same manner. It is like a smaller bet that you’ll have a fire, and many feel they can risk the pay-off if they lose.

Sure, if a department must respond to a structure fire, and it turns out that the owner of that structure hasn’t paid the subscription fee, then the department can charge a fee considerably higher than what the subscription fee would have been. But there are a few things that must be taken into consideration. First, if there is no fire at these structures, then no money is ever collected. And even if there is a fire, and the owner has no fire insurance-not an uncommon thing, this-and the owner is destitute, again, the department is just out of luck.

But if the county would impose a mandatory fee of, say, $2.50 per month on each household in the county, and, say, $5.00 per month for businesses, a fee that could be added to each month’s electric bill, this amount of money, which roughly corresponds to the widely-ignored subscription fee, could then be used by the county to fund each of its fire departments, paying the utility bills, and provide for the maintenance and upgrading of their equipment. And if there are those who consider this cost to be prohibitively high, then consider that the improvement in fire protection would theoretically lower the fire insurance rate for property owners, and this should more than offset this additional expense. There is already in place the Pike County Fire Fighters Association, and it, together with Pikeville’s professional fire department, and those officials from the county’s Disaster and Emergency Services, could work together to make fire protection a much surer thing for the county’s citizens.

And if this were put together with a course on fire-fighting that could be taught in the Board of Education’s vocational schools, this course could provide our young people with a shot at a career as a paid first responder one day. Better still though, this course could very well raise the interest of young people in becoming a first responder here in Pike County, and would give local fire departments what they most desperately need, and that is young, able-bodied members. And Pike County would once again be setting an example for the rest of the state’s counties in how to best provide good and efficient governmental services.