Revenue and charges for service discussed, board approves raise

SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Fire District discussed issues with the billing company and vendors at their Sept. 18 meeting. They also approved a $5,000 raise for Fire Chief Dave Lane.

Lane said the District is down 60 calls from last year. This is good because it cuts down on the wear and tear on the vehicles and cuts expenses, however it is a loss of revenue for the District.

Lane said he is working on increasing the revenue. He added there are things coming to light with the billing company that need to be addressed to improve the billing outcomes.

He shared an example of a recent case where a hardship letter was written to the billing company. That letter was never presented to the board for consideration and the billing company “wrote off the whole bill. Even with a hardship, you can pay $5 or $10 a month up to a certain amount and then you can decide to write the rest of it off,” said Lane.

Lane said the contract with the billing company expired in 2016. While the contract was not available at the meeting, Lane told the board there was nothing in it that gave the company the authority to write off bills.

Lane did not feel it was appropriate to go back to the individual who was told the bill was waived and ask for the $1,500 owed to the District. He also doesn’t know how long this has been going on.

“It is something that needs to be addressed and I will address it,” said Lane. “They are a local company so I would like to give them an opportunity if we can work this stuff out.”

Lane told the board he is trying to cut back on spending with vendors that are not completing the work. He said he had a list of issues he was going to address with various vendors but shared two examples.

The 2011 Polaris Ranger Crew side-by-side had an overheating problem. It was taken in to have the problem fixed in April. When it wasn’t available for the Fourth of July parade, the District was given a loaner. When it was fixed it was returned with an invoice for $2,300 and the District returned the loaner.

Lane said a short time later, the side-by-side was used for the Memorial Service for James Sackett and it overheated again.

Another instance was the mechanic who has been coming out quarterly to inspect the vehicles. When one of the pumps failed the pump test because it overheated, Lane got a second opinion. Lane has evidence the service has not been done on the vehicles.

“We are paying people to do these things and they are not being done,” said Lane. “I’m tired of it. I’m changing vendors and I’m not going to pay the Polaris people until we have a long discussion over the bill because I don’t know if all the work was done or not. The discussion will finish and we will either pay the bill or we won’t.”

The board continued the discussion of the $5,000 raise proposed for Chief Lane at the August meeting.

Board member Rachel Jennings pointed out that if the chief was given the standard three percent raise each year and the chief’s base pay was raised from what he was hired at $50,000 to the proposed $55,000, it would cost the District $64,000 more over 10 years in salary.

Chair Scott Kennedy said that the District still doesn’t pay the average fire chief salary $60,000-$80,000 in Montana.

“One of the goals has always been that we can draw a chief’s pay out of this department. We’re not quite there yet but we can slowly get there,” said Kennedy.

The board unanimously approved the 10 percent raise of $5,000 for Lane.

In other business:

• Kody Kelley was hired into the part-time maintenance position. He was the only applicant.

• A First Responder EMR class is scheduled for January.

For more information contact the Fire Department, 677-2400, or visit the website seeleyfire.org. The next meeting is Oct. 16 at 6 p.m. at the Fire Hall.