Eight years ago, the results of a study validated what many business and county leaders already believed to be true: Consolidating the 13 fire departments in Volusia into one large operation could save taxpayers millions and provide a higher level of service in the long run.
Government-minded leaders with the Halifax Civic League were so encouraged by what the study showed they hoped a change was soon on the horizon.
"Let's not let (this study) sit on a shelf and collect dust," Kent Sharples, then the group's chairman before he became leader of the CEO Business Alliance, said in early 2011.
The issue was then placed on a shelf, where it sat for years until County Chair Ed Kelley and Volusia County Councilman Ben Johnson blew off the dust, in a manner of speaking, by bringing the issue up at the March 19 council meeting.
The study itself remains on the Civic League's website after it failed to convince enough city and county leaders to take action. While Kelley said he would like a more thorough airing of the issue, an informal survey of city leaders suggests a new push to consolidate won't be any easier today. Some city leaders are completely against it. Others are on the fence.
"I've been through a great number of discussions on this issue," said DeLand Mayor Bob Apgar, who chairs monthly meetings involving Volusia's 16 mayors and was surprised when the topic re-emerged in County Council chambers. He said he likes that DeLand provides fire services for its residents, and he likes that city leaders have a say in how it's run and operated.
"There's an inherent loss of comfort when a government gives up control," he added. "I'm willing to sit down and talk about this, but having been through this multiple times now, it does have its challenges to get there."
The incentive to look at the issue again remains the same. The 2011 study identified $5.7 million in annual personnel savings by increasing efficiency. Howard Tipton, a Civic League member and former Daytona Beach city manager who was among the biggest proponents of consolidation when the study came out, believes it's still worth discussing.
"The facts are the county and city fire departments have overlapping service areas and a countywide fire rescue service would, over time, provide a more effective and more efficient fire/rescue operation," said Tipton, who was the country's first national fire administrator in the 1970s before coming to Volusia County and retiring in Port Orange. "I believe that. I tried to say it before, but some cities wanted it to stay the way it was, and the county wasn't motivated to work on this any harder."
The study
The issue re-emerged after the County Council approved a $9 million upgrade to its 20-station fire department at its March 19 meeting. Johnson said it doesn't make sense for some city and county fire stations to be just minutes apart. Kelley said fire departments are costly to run, and he doesn't understand why the county needs 13 fire chiefs (whose salaries total more than $1.5 million, according to a 2017 News-Journal database). Both officials made the point that merging departments could save money.
The Civic League study, conducted by the Virginia-based TriData consulting firm, had concluded the same thing.
One of the bigger problems identified by the study was that costs were rising at an unsustainable rate. Between 2002 and 2009, the total cost for the 13 departments in Volusia (four cities contract for the service from the county) rose from $43.8 million to $85 million. The report attributed the increase to inflation, the "high-cost pension programs (and) too many fire stations."
But some of the report's findings gave city leaders pause. The study showed that each city paid a different level of property taxes to support fire services, and that it would take a countywide property tax of $2.75 per $1,000 of property value to support a unified district with the same personnel as the existing 13 departments.
That rate was higher than what residents in many cities paid at the time. Some cities managed to do that because they had a healthier tax base than their neighbors. Others, especially smaller cities, were in effect subsidized by their larger neighbors, who had the staffing and equipment to help respond to a major emergency that a small department couldn't manage on its own.
Given the difficulty of the politics, the report raised other possibilities short of a full consolidation, including a regional plan that would have created three or four fire departments throughout the county.
With opposition from some cities, talks of consolidation eventually burned out. Instead, the County Council turned to other emergency operations priorities. The county took over ambulance services from a private, third-party company, and later unified 911 dispatcher services.
Johnson, who was then sheriff, said that before that merger occurred, it also faced a lot of doubters and skeptics.
"People thought the whole world was going to end and everyone was going to die if we did it. And it's worked out very well," Johnson said recently.
This consolidation of fire departments could be more challenging considering that unions from each city are likely to fight against it. Either way, it deserves attention, he said.
"This isn't a play to take power," he said. "I'm looking at something that may work better for the citizens. Will it ever fly? I don't know, but it's something the cities and citizens should have a discussion on."
Kelley knows a tough road lies ahead to get city officials on board, but he plans to continue pushing the subject. He said he'd like to bring up it again when the mayors get together for a public meeting on Monday.
"I wouldn't mind putting it out for discussion and having each government weigh in," Kelley said. But even if most city leaders say no, Kelley added that the residents should have a say on this also, considering what the study showed years earlier.
"The people who would gain the most (from this move) are the residents," Kelley said, "and they're the ones who should have a voice."
Some aren't convinced
DeLand's Apgar is at least willing to discuss it again. That's a better reception than the idea gets in some cities.
"I have no appetite for it," said Chris Nabicht of Deltona, which runs five of the 57 fire stations located in Volusia. Nabicht, a former firefighter, added that providing fire services throughout a county the size of Volusia is not a one-size-fits-all operation. "What works in Daytona may not necessarily work in DeLand. It's been hashed over and hashed over and we have more pressing issues."
Holly Hill Mayor Chris Via said his initial response is no as well. "We have a great fire department that serves our community well and knows every street like the back of their hand. They really do a good job. If nothing is broke, don't fix it."
But there could be enough support for the idea to prompt yet another look. Port Orange Mayor Don Burnette was just appointed to the City Council in 2011 when the last study came out. At that time, he said, "If we can't do something now, it never will happen."
A lot has changed since then. Port Orange's public safety execution has gotten better, Burnette said, and recently the city took a step it believes will improve emergency services by agreeing to purchase an ambulance for the city, fearing that Volusia's countywide service isn't cutting it.
Yet Burnette is at least receptive to the concept of one unified fire department under the county if it truly makes services better at a reduced cost. Seminole County has absorbed fire departments from three of its cities in the past 10 years to cut costs by eliminating some positions and removing the need to build new fire stations — Burnette would be more in favor of a similar, smaller-scale consolidation, such as four regional fire departments.
"I think it would be wrong for me to dismiss it if I were able to have the same or better level of service at a better rate for taxpayers," Burnette said. "I would be willing to entertain it."
Joe Yarbrough, the former city manager of South Daytona who leads monthly meetings involving all city managers, was able to eventually get all cities to come together in an unprecedented show of unity to support putting a half-cent sales tax on a ballot to fix roads and improve water. Getting that same level of buy-in from city managers over this fire department issue would be a bigger challenge, Yarbrough said, though he isn't opposed to consolidation.
"I think most of us think it's silly the way we do it. We are overlapping service calls and duplicating service calls," Yarbrough said. "But some people, for whatever reason, say, 'Leave it alone.'"
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