County Budget, Firefighters, am I missing something
 

Saw in local online news site - the county austerity measures. In a time where the cost of food is up 19%, we are not giving our firefighters a raise, we are reducing training and reducing staffing on trucks?

And before anyone complains that a 8.7 COLA increase is too much, what was last year’s social security COLA increase? 8.7%, I think.

I don’t recall anything handled as poorly as this AMR ambulance transition.


“To save jobs, Hanson said firefighters have agreed to forego an 8.7 percent cost-of-living increase for county employees as well as some training stipends.

The fire chief also said he will reduce staffing to two or three firefighters per vehicle, down from three or four.”

From what I can tell, many Sumter County homeowners were concerned that the proposed fire assessment fee would have risen from $124 per year to about $323. Also, it looks like Sumter County is planning to create a dependent fire district for the Villages Public Safety Department (VPSD). A dependent district would offer the VPSD greater control over its finances while remaining under county authority. The rest of Sumter County is served by a separate Sumter County Fire Department.

Our own fault
 

We all balked when it was finally revealed what it would actually cost to get the fire and ambulance services we asked for. Home owners didn’t like the 100% increase in our fire fee and business were up in arms about the huge increases proposed for basing their fee upon their size.

So we are back to paying for our fire & ambulance under the old system of a set fee per property and money from our ad volarem taxes. And there isn’t enough to pay for all we wanted.

Welcome to the real world of The Villages where there is a cost associated with all that we enjoy and maintaining these services is only going to keep getting more and more expensive.

We have a choice. We can pay for it, or not.

Maybe the next time the independent fire district is on the ballot, people will learn the facts rather than succumb to anti-developer hype.

The Villagers demanded improved ambulance response which required increased staffing. They got what they asked for.

The Villagers argued against an independent district with a stable funding stream. They got what they asked for.

Many in Sumter County (Villagers included) argued against increasing the fire protection fee to fund the fire departments. They got what they asked for.

But that puts us where we are today: the fire departments have to figure out how to do more with less.

Going without a pay raise will hurt. Seeing your co-workers let go because of funding cuts would hurt too. Lesser of two evils I guess.

But you forgot one key ingredient: Many did not understand or bother to find out what "they" were asking (and voting) for.

So at this point, who would be ok with a $0.50 a day tax increase to support our firefighters while this is getting sorted out?

(Probably gross over simplification...)

So people are bucking over $16.00/Month ($0.50/day) to have top quality Fire and EMS services. But we'll quickly run down to a country club order appetizers and a couple beers (around $16.00) to discuss it. Penny wise, pound foolish.

I think the pandemic made AMR look worst than they really were. So folks had a knee jerk reaction not keeping in mind we were in the middle of a pandemic hence the slower response times.

After the pandemic calmed down response times got better but of course this whole VSPD vote was already on the table.

Now you lost AMR all together and will have slower response times with less staff.

Great job by the neurotic super paranoid we have to do something immediately crowd.

Not privy to all the details but from what I have read there seems to be acres of room for negotiations. Appears both sides have dug in their heels and said you need to choose this or that.

To put things in perspective, I have seen articles that refute the severity of the above as follows.
"All these adjustments have been made to save the jobs," Hanson said.
The fire chief said they will not make staff cuts, but they will have to cut current job openings and future growth, as well as reduce operations including in rural areas and The Villages.
"Some of those services may take a little bit more time to get too, or maybe less people go to those types of calls," Hanson said.

I have not seen the agreement that Firefighters have given up a raise of 8.7%. However, I can confirm that their two-year agreement with the county does have an article 45.1 which states that there would be a COLA based upon 2023 Indices.

Reference to the 8.7% Social Security raise that most of us got for CY 2023 is correct, but do not plan on that for 2024. Rate not established yet, but some estimates say 3.2% and that is only against a much smaller base equaling ~ $750/year.

Think of all the retired folks living on a pension and SS. Some have not seen any increase in 20 years.

Labor contracts are something that every party has interests in. In this case, taxpayers, County Commissioners and Firefighters. Sometimes everyone must be apart of the solution. Note the attached agreement. Firefighters are not limited to COLA. There are promotions and incentives also available.


https://www.sumtercountyfl.gov/Agend...8?fileID=51421

True, but business here should be paying a lot more than they are currently paying for fire protection. All I have ever heard was that a huge percentage fee was proposed but never saw a dollar amount attached to that.

Expect a $ 200 yearly increase for fire and ambulance and am ok with it but all parties covered should be paying for it.

You would have to look at the tax bill to see what the increase was for a business. Some would have been small(ish) and others not so small.

A $500 fire fee for everyone would have come close to collecting the same money. However, with all the citizens that complained about a $200 increase, is there any reason to believe a $375 increase will be palatable?

I thought the incremental increase was more like $124?

But in any case, the ambulance service near me is vastly improved since the change and well worth an extra dollar day.

Duplicate post deleted...

The Sun manipulated everything by only referencing the increases for business on percentage terms without giving actual numbers and than finding people who kept saying they would be forced to move if fire protection went up by 200.

The previous/current fee is $124. This will probably be increased to $125. This fee was assessed to rooftops or sometimes consolidated properties. The lofts at Brownwood may have been assessed $620 for five buildings or possibly only $124 for one property. I believe Grand Traverse plaza also was assessed $124 total.

The new fee would have increased from $124 to $323.63 for residential properties but also had a new structure for commercial properties. Some, like apartment buildings, would have been assessed $323.63 per apartment while others would be assessed some amount (I don't remember exactly what) per square foot. Both the lofts and Grand Traverse plaza would have paid significantly more under this structure.

But none of that matters now. The fee will likely be $125 for you, me, the plaza, and the lofts.

Thanks!

Complex situation, will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Dont the lofts and grand traverse plaza also pay into the “fire fund” via their county taxes, based on assessed value - so they are paying much more than $124 each.

The sun also didn’t talk about the resident who passed away because the ambulance took 45 minutes to arrive.

How many people can’t afford another $200 a year?

And so are you and I. They and we would still be paying through property taxes if the new fees had been put in place.

What is being discussed is the only thing that was proposed to be changed and that was the new fee structure.

Very true. They only print what they are told to print.

Since we're going down that road. Sumter County officials would not comment before the vote on whether or not residents inside the proposed TVFD independent fire district would also continue paying for the SCFD. As it turns out that is what is exactly going to continue to happen. 80% of the taxpayers are paying for the other 20%.

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Since purchasing our first home in the Villages in 2007 I have attempted to do far more reading on this site than posting. By way of background, I retired after 35 years in law enforcement. The last ten years I served as the elected Sheriff of Virginia Beach Virginia, a community of a half million people. In addition, I served a four-year term on the Virginia Beach City Council, a two-year term on the Virginia Beach School Board, a ten-year term as Chairman and member of the Virginia Lottery Board, and eight years on a city board managing a several hundred-million-dollar deferred compensation plan. My expertise in governmental finance allowed me to teach governmental budgeting throughout the State of Virginia.

My first-hand observations have led me to believe that the vast majority of elected County Commissioners / City Council members do not have the fiscal acumen to fully understand the nuances of the local budget for which they are responsible. This leaves the power of the purse with the County / City Administrators and their staff. Typically, when staff faces push back against their recommendations they will respond with a “poison pill”. The “poison pill” usually starts with a service cut so draconian that it elicits pressure on the elected officials to accept the staff position.

I fully accept that I do not know if the above general observations apply to Sumter County specifically. I have been derelict in keeping up with our local officials and their positions. This is not intended to call into question their expertise or motives.
I would offer some alternatives based on my belief that tax dollars should be kept at a minimum to provide for the greater good of the majority of citizens and a greater reliance should be placed on user fees.

In example – if an irresponsible drunk driver causes a traffic crash the law-abiding community as a whole should not bear the cost of the emergency response of police, fire and rescue. That is why I proposed and enacted the “Emergency Response Cost Recovery” law while in Virginia Beach. That law imposes a civil penalty for the cost of such response which is in addition to any criminal fines and fees imposed.

The greatest potential for tax savings comes from the annual budget itself. If you have ever worked under a local, state, or federal governmental budget you know how inefficient it can be. Governmental budget managers and employees have learned long ago if they don’t spend all the appropriated funds this fiscal year, they won’t get that money back next fiscal year. This leads to wasteful and unnecessary expenditures.

While on the City Council, I proposed and enacted an employee “Gainsharing” plan. This plan started with implementing a performance-based budget to ensure services were provided in an effective and timely manner. The employees were then encouraged to complete their tasks in the most efficient and effective way possible. The reward for this modified behavior came at the end of the fiscal year when they received a bonus of a portion of every dollar saved. In today's work environment I would change the bonus plan to a secondary retirement plan with a vesting timeline to encourage retention.

Finally, as an EMT for our SWAT team I know firsthand the importance of the “Platinum Ten Minutes”. Getting a patient to the hospital as quickly and safely as possible greatly increases their survival rates. Our community is no longer “Mayberry”. We are a substantial and growing community that needs to implement modern technology to better serve our citizens. One such technology uses a traffic signal preemptor system to allow emergency vehicles to turn their upcoming signal to green for safer, quicker passage for them and reduces collisions with routine traffic. These systems began nearly thirty years age and are becoming more and more economical.

Whether we agree with all our elected officials and staff members on all issues I believe we owe them our gratitude for providing a service that allows us to live in a great community.

Good luck as I go back into hibernation.

We often forget that not everyone in Sumter County lives inside a literal bubble. I have been told that many people are struggling to make ends meet.

Lost in the discussion is total revenue. Sumter County revenue will increase by over $6 million without any tax increases or fire assessments.

They are trying to segment discussion about one part of the budget instead of it in entirety. The BOCC should be explaining why a $6 million a year increase isn’t enough.

True bit if we want better ambulance service we have to pay for it.

Total revenue for the general fund is projected to DECREASE by $5.5M with the defeat of the restructured fee.

Property tax revenue is projected to increase by $6M and fire assessments are projected to increase by $480K but these are offset by decreases elsewhere.

Fire service transfers decrease as well: $38M transferred in 2022-23 but only $35M budgeted for this year.

All of your info is wrong about these increases. Every villager would be happy to pay the $130 increase for firefighters/emu’s. The problems were that they were going to gouge every retailer here by many thousands of $$$ per year, which would have increased the cost of doing business here by quite a bit. From what I heard, a company like Galaxy would have their tax increase go from $1000 (+ or -) a year to over $12,000 a year. This was the area that people most complained about when it was dropped. We all pay the village tax if we use a company that operates in the villages, this new fee would have just made that tax go up for every villager.

Who is "we" the older folks in TV that have one foot in the grave?

There's plenty of younger folks in Sumter who are struggling and faster ambulance service is not their highest priority.

Most counties charge a fire fee to businesses based on square footage. Lake County charges by the square foot. Look up their charges. Look up all the other metropolitan areas in Florida and you will see businesses all pay much more than they do here in Sumter County. They either charge fire impact fees and/or fire assessment fees on businesses. based on square footage. I don’t know why people post alarmist statements about “overcharging” businesses when Sumter County has a ridiculous system that favors business over residents. Look it up. $124 per rooftop and no fire impact fees for businesses is one of the lowest in Florida!

No, I'm pretty sure my information about these increases is absolutely correct as it came from budget documents, Benesch study documents, and Sumter County tax documents.

The impact to businesses is a complicated issue. Absolutely, the $124 assessment to a commercial rooftop or commercial property would have increased dramatically. But, what is the actual cost to providing fire protection service to the property and who would actually pay it?

Is $124 reasonable for the entirety of the lofts at Brownwood or Grand Traverse plaza? Try thinking about it this way. Let's say $124 is reasonable for my house, my neighbor's house, and the eight other houses on my cul-de-sac. Each of us receives the same services, those services have a cost, and so we each pay $124 (for a total of $1,240 for the street). Now imagine I win the lottery and decide I don't want any neighbors so I purchase all their homes. Further, I don't like the idea of receiving separate tax bills so I legally merge all those properties into one. Now I have a single property with ten rooftops - my own little compound. The fire assessment for that property would now be $124 total. Even though the ten homes still exist and even though they require the same fire protection services the fee is reduced because they are now a single property. That's legal, but is it reasonable?

The Benesch study attempted to calculate fire protection costs and come up with a fee structure that allocated those costs based on utilization. It attempted to fairly allocate the real costs rather than simply charge each property $124 regardless of the fire protection needs. Businesses didn't like the outcome of the study but I didn't read much (any?) criticism of the methodology of the study. Perhaps the study was correct and businesses have been getting a great deal for a long time.

Who would pay for the increased fees on businesses? That depends. If a business owned its land and property then the increases would fall on business profit and could be passed to the customers. There would be a tradeoff that would take into consideration how much profit the business needed to survive and how much cost the customer would be willing to pay. It might be that some businesses simply would not be able to afford the fees and would close. Others would pass the costs to customers who would then stop patronizing that business. It could get ugly.

Inside the Villages there is the same story but with a catch. Inside the Villages there is a landlord. We know prices inside the Villages are higher than outside for most things. We have heard that rents inside the Villages are high though we've been told the rents must not be excessive since businesses keep paying them. But now not only is there the business' profit that could be used to pay the increased fee there is also the landlord's profit. If fees were increased and business' profit decreased or the cost was passed to customers who stopped coming then some storefronts would become vacant. The landlord (the Villages) may determine that they should lower rents rather than see their rent income go to zero. In other words, the "Village tax" may decrease in order to keep businesses in the Villages.

But none of this matters now. The IFD was defeated and a fee restructuring was defeated. Next up - a dependent fire district with taxing authority.

Instead of voting an increase in service standards at around an extra $40 a month per residence, they voted it down and we no longer get the increase in firefighters need for the expand villages down south, and they are closing 3 fire stations and got rid of one whole hazmat department. Way to go! Cut off the nose despite the face. You want top notch services when your house is on fire, or you have a medical emergency but don’t want to pay for it. Geeeeze….

I told people that we needed to be independent when it was on the ballot last year, but no, you people voted it down. Now we are all going to have to pay dearly!

I think it was presented poorly and folks misunderstood situation. Hopefully this can be fixed

I forget the timing of when the decision to leave AMR was made or considered. I do know AMR pre dates my time in the Villages.
How was fire and ambulance operated and paid for pre AMR? Was service acceptable? I wold guess the move to AMR was primarily to save money for the taxpayers. Did taxes go down - my guess NO.

The decision to leave AMR was made around September 2021, prior to the IFD proposal. The decision was made because of perceived poor performance (long wait times) by AMR. The fire department was arriving on scene 15-20 minutes sooner than AMR. The solution, put EMS at the fire stations since they have good response times.

There was the accusation that AMR was costing the taxpayers a lot of money for mediocre service but I don't know that I ever saw any numbers on that. There was never a calculation that I saw for how much FD-based ambulance service would cost or what the budget difference would be.

So the BoCC voted to end AMR and allow VPSD and SCFD (renamed to SCFEMS) to provide ambulance service.

Fire service has been paid for by the $124 fee plus property taxes for at least the last five years. I heard somewhere that the $124 fee had not been changed since 2017 but I wasn't here at that time to see it. You could look at old Sumter County budget documents to see how much was spent on fire protection in previous years. I know the request this year was for significantly more than last year.

A couple hundred bucks spread over the year seems pretty trivial considering where we live and what we paid/pay to live in TV. IMO, EMS is worth it! Think about the state people are in when they arrive at an MVA or fire, sometimes stomach turning. So, skip a few nights out to dinner each year for those that come to aid us at our worst of times......

Sure. Because people in their 40's and even 30's don't have cardiac arrests. Because 20 somethings don't get in serious car accidents. Because the only senior citizens in Sumter Co. live in TV. And those of us who live in TV have "one foot in the grave".

Nice post, not.:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl: