Greg Jordan
Bluefield Daily Telegraph, W.Va.
(TNS)

Feb. 25—PRINCETON — Volunteer fire departments are facing rising prices and decreasing sources of funding as they work to keep their vehicles up-to-date and provide their members with up-to-date equipment, prompting one Mercer County commissioner to say that the county may have to look at adjusting its fire fees.

Aaron Beeman, president of the Mercer County Firemen’s Association, spoke Feb. 14 with the Mercer County Commission about the lack of money the county’s volunteer fire departments are facing. He said that the association was looking for $450,000 from the commission, which would give $50,000 to each of the county’s nine volunteer fire departments. The City of Bluefield and City of Princeton fire departments would not receive any of this money.

“The two municipalities are out of that,” Beeman told the commissioners. “They are not participating due to their own funding. This will go toward helping volunteer firefighters and their departments.”

The strain that the nation’s economy has felt over the last two to three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increasing prices and shipping constraints, he said. Most of Mercer County’s fire departments have “out-of-date or soon to be out-of-date equipment.”

Most certification for current firefighting equipment is set to expire after being used for 10 years, Beeman said. This includes air masks and other gear which must be replaced every 10 years. Medical supplies and personal protective gear such as masks and gloves — which are not normally used on every call — had to be purchased during the pandemic.

Outfitting even one firefighter with required gear costs between $9,000 to $10,000, he added.

“When you have 10 to 15 people per station, that adds up quickly,” Beeman stated. “We’re all feeling fuel prices, gas prices. The volunteer fire departments in this county are working on limited funding. We can get funding through some state funding; it comes through the insurance fees. We also have the fire fee in this county. On that note, last year alone over $160,000 was turned into collections for nonpayment of the Mercer County fire fee, which comes to $12,000 to $13,000 less for each of these fire departments will have this year to work on.”

Commissioner Greg Puckett, who attended the meeting by teleconference, spoke at length about the funding issue. He is also a member of the Mercer County Fire Board.

“So we’ve discussed this in the (Mercer County) fire board meeting over the last year and there’s a couple of things we need to look it,” Puckett said. “I know there’s an incremental piece that was put forth eight years ago when the fire fee was put into place, going on nine years ago now when it got adjusted, and at the time it was a good adjustment. But the increasing costs, the inflation costs coming post-COVID, all the different gear in the firefighting apparatus that everything needs to be done, I do think there needs to be a change in the fire fee. I know that’s a difficult thing. They are in arrears in some in some ways in those collections of $160,000-plus, but I believe we’re going to end up having to go back and figuring out a way to make some incremental adjustments within the fire fee itself that it’s balanced out.”

Puckett said the fire board has looked at how funds are distributed among the departments.

“We talked about ways where businesses pay the more because when you’re fighting a fire at a larger facility, it’s obviously going to be more manpower, more things. There should be more of a backup service there to protect and get the m