The burning need for more firefighters likely will bring a tax increase for Cherokee County property owners.
But any increase in taxes next year, some county commissioners say, should eventually be offset by a drop in homeowners' insurance premiums.
Budget woes have forced Cherokee County fire Chief Bruce Borders to leave 19 positions vacant. As a result, most of the department's 21 fire stations are staffed by a single firefighter. That lone firefighter drives the firetruck to an alarm, hopefully to be met by volunteer firefighters. Full-time firefighters from other stations also respond to many calls.
"One firefighter can't really do very much," said Ryan Osborne, president of Cherokee Local 4047 of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
And while volunteer firefighters are effective, Osborne said, "you can't guarantee me 10 volunteers will show up at any given incident. You might get 20, you might get two."
Osborne said the county needs to hire "at least 100" firefighters so there are three at each station.
Borders said he wants at least two firefighters assigned to each station.
The county plans to fill the 19 vacancies after Oct. 1, but even that boost in manpower won't achieve that goal.
Borders said he hopes to hire 30 to 40 firefighters in 2006 at a cost of $1.5 to $2 million.
"That bumps up the payroll quite a bit," said Borders, who has been chief for about a year.
Increasing the fire tax rate from 2.212 mills back to the 2.5 mills first approved by voters in 1998 would cost the owner of a $200,000 home about $24 more per year in taxes, said Post 1 Commissioner Harry Johnston.
"I've always said I'd be willing to increase the fire tax rate if the additional funds would allow us to improve the [fire insurance] rating and save the average taxpayer enough on their insurance premiums to offset the extra tax," Johnston wrote in response to an e-mail survey.
Post 2 Commissioner Jim Hubbard, who 30 years ago helped start the Hickory Flat Volunteer Fire Department, said he favors increasing the fire tax after years of cuts.
"That millage rate has been rolled back and rolled back and rolled back," Hubbard said, adding that insurance savings would cover the increased tax.
"If I had to do it over again, I would not have voted to roll it back," said Commission Chairman Mike Byrd.
Post 4 Commissioner Derek Good, an insurance agent, said he checked with two insurance companies to see how an improvement in the fire insurance rating would affect insurance premiums. In the comparison, Good said, he used as an example a $200,000 house built in 1995 covered by a policy with a $500 deductible. If the county's Insurance Services Office rating rises from 5 (on a scale of 1 to 10) to 4, the homeowner in this example "enjoyed a rate decrease of $35 to $50 a year," Good said.
Adding 40 or so firefighters, Good said, "would help us get a step closer to an ISO 4 rating."
Meanwhile, the roughly 200 volunteer firefighters in the county will continue to play a critical role in public safety, Borders said.
Hubbard, who has more than 2,000 hours of training as a volunteer firefighter, no longer mans the hose, but he still responds to calls --- including three on Easter Sunday.
The public is safer with one person per station than with an all-volunteer department.
"There had been times when we were all-volunteer when I would leave my house, go to the station, get the truck and drive back by my house on the way to an incident," Hubbard recalled.
The commission won't consider the fire tax millage until late summer, when public hearings on the budget will be held.
