Seeley Lake Fire Board
SEELEY LAKE – The Fire Board met for an informational workshop Tuesday, June 8 at 1 p.m. regarding the potential of hiring employees as well as purchasing a Type I engine that will be going up for bid in Missoula soon. No decisions were made at the meeting and discussions will continue at the next board meeting June 15 at 6 p.m. at the District. Workshops and special meetings are posted on the District website seeleyfire.org and posted at the Station.
Current Situation
Fire Chief Dave Lane provided the board with a current roster. They currently have 19 members on the roster with three inactive members. This leaves three active EMTs. There are volunteers currently attending EMT training and others that will attend training in August.
Lane, who is a paramedic and the only Advanced Life Support (ALS) provider on the District, said he is covering more than 80% of the calls. Most of the time one EMT and a driver can cover a call. Lane said the driver does not need to be an EMT so they try not to send two EMTs out of District to ensure the second call is covered.
“We are not missing calls,” Lane said. “I think there may have been two this past year, one that was no response and one that was a very slow response.”
Lane explained the lack of volunteers is a nationwide issue that is a result of several factors. In Seeley, they are talking to people, offering applications to anyone who comes in the Fire Hall, sending volunteers to EMT and other training, reach out to those who have left the department and talking to the inactive volunteers to see what they can do to help.
“We will continue to build our roster but as the community changes and we are not keeping up with that, we need help,” Lane said. “It would be nice if I could have a dedicated day off.”
Since the mission of the Fire District is fire protection, Board Member Jon Kimble asked if they had enough firefighters.
Lane said sometimes, they have been short the last two fires. While they can request mutual aid from surrounding departments, one of the requests was declined because it was too cold for them to come out.
Kimble pointed out that from his research volunteer firefighters are between the ages of 30-49. In East Missoula, the average age of residents is 36. In Seeley Lake it is 53.
“People that volunteer here need to live here because our surrounding communities are too far away to meet that standard for response,” Lane said.
Lane continued, “It is going to cost [to hire people]. We are struggling now. If we don’t hire anybody, the struggle is going to continue.”
Possible Solutions to current situation
Lane told the Board they have three options to address the volunteer shortage: Continue to rely solely on volunteers, hire a few personnel or hire six full responders ideally three dual-rated paramedic/firefighters and three EMT/firefighters.
Lane would like to see the Department shift to a Combination Department where there are paid staff along with active volunteers. He said there are many different models for combination departments that he is continually researching. However, that this workshop he proposed that he would like to hire six personnel.
“We will try and maintain our roster and improve our rosters as far as volunteers. But these paid line staff will supplement that roster,” Lane said. “By hiring firefighter/paramedics or firefighter/EMTs, we have the ability to have cross trained people that will only provide more benefit to our community.”
With three paramedics, there would be ALS coverage 24 hours, seven days a week. Since Lane is a paramedic and the District Administrator will be an EMT, they would cover the second call in this situation. Lane said he would not want to be in the rotation because if takes him away from being a fire chief and his administrative duties.
“We don’t have a tax base to support the plan that I’m talking about today. Our tax base covers a little bit more than we have expenditures for but we have nowhere near six employees,” Lane said. “So we are going to have to go to the community to see if they would support a tax rate increase.”
Lane compared to Missoula Rural Fire District’s Mill Levy that they passed in May 2019.
According to Missoula Rural’s Mill Levy information, the levy was for 29.6 mills, raised approximately $1.4 million annually, and was used to hire, train and equip 10 additional career firefighter and/or EMTs for a total of 52 full-time firefighters.
The tax increase for residential property was about $40 per $100,000 taxable value. The levy passed by 336 votes or 53%.
To hire six people, pay for equipment, training, uniforms, certifications, building upgrades and allow room from growth, Lane estimated the would need to request a levy of $500,000 per year. More research would need to be done on the actual cost to the taxpayer if the Board pursued this option.
To off set the tax increase, Lane proposed reducing the ambulance bill for community members since insurance typically covers 80%.
“If you are a member of this community, we would bill your insurance, same as always,” Lane said. “However your out of pocket deductible, or expense, we would forgive that. Your insurance payment would be accepted as payment in full.”
For those that don’t have insurance, Lane proposed the District would make attempts to collect the bill or portion of it but then they would cut it off because they pay taxes.
“That is one idea I have to soften the blow for taxes,” Lane said adding that if the Board wants to further discuss this they can look at it in more detail. “If we can kick a little bit back to our community, maybe it will help. We need to take care of our people.”
If the levy passed, Lane said he would apply for the SAFER Grant since they don’t currently have the budget to apply for the grant. The SAFER Grant would relieve 75% of the staffing costs in the first year. This would allow them to upgrade the Department’s facilities by putting a toilet upstairs with the living quarters and a second egress. Every year the funding in the SAFER Grant drops until after five years there is no grant support.
“But we have to maintain that staffing for the entire period of the grant or we will have to pay back all of the money,” Lane said.
In addition to 24/7 ALS coverage, Lane said additional benefits include possibly higher insurance ratings for the community with additional staff.
Board Chair Scott Kennedy added there could be additional income coming in with the ability to run a second ambulance and potentially a third. There is also a benefit of supplying outside resources to some of these additional events.
“That is a bigger benefit to me for our community to be present more in our surrounding communities without hurting coverage here,” Lane said. “There are a lot of assignments that go on in other communities that we can’t cover because I don’t want to leave our community uncovered.”
Lane continued, “There are many more positives than negatives. The biggest negative that I can think of is the tax increase. I, like everyone else, does not like to pay taxes, let alone increased taxes for a service we are already receiving. We are going to continue providing service, if [the community] chooses not to have a levy increase. But we are going to have to make some other changes. We are not sure what those might be.”
Board Member Rita Rossi asked Lane why they needed to hire several staff at once. Lane explained if he hires six personnel, then he can work them 56 hours a week without overtime and there are schedules that he could implement that would not require employees to live in Seeley Lake. If the workers are unionized, there would need to be more negotiations.
It was asked what the paid staff would be responsible for since there are an average of 300 calls per year with 250 being EMS calls.
Lane said they are discussing the responsibilities but they would be doing “District work” as outlined by the Chief from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. After hours there would still be measurable expectations.
“By having paid staff I can create the accountability and make sure there are repercussions if it is not met,” Lane said. “With the volunteers it is harder because they are responding from home day or night, they have jobs, it is harder to create that strict behavior. I can hold them more accountable to a higher standard to make sure we are giving the best that we can.”
Lane has been talking with Campbell DeLong Resources, Inc. in helping the community with outreach. They worked with Missoula Rural in their 2019 election. He presented the Board with a proposal from Campbell DeLong Resources, Inc. (https://www.seeleylake.com/home/customer_files/article_documents/campbell_delong.pdf). The total cost outlined in the proposal is $12,950. Lane said there will be other meetings, including establishing a committee including two board member, District members and community members to discuss these steps and promote these steps within the community.
Lane said they would hold events with a power point presentation with the information to reach the community and find out what the community wants. Once the community decides what they want, the board will decide what they will pursue and then what that looks like to the community.
“It’s going to be a process. It’s going to take a lot of sharing of information. A lot of research on this office to know where are we, where are we going and how are we going to get there,” Lane said. “We hope to have it on the ballot [if that is the direction the Board chooses] in a reasonable amount of time, this fall or this summer.”
Type I Engine
Lane presented the Board with an opportunity for a Type I 2003 structure response engine that is available in Missoula. It will be up for sealed bid auction starting at $40,000. Lane said new engines start at $350,000 for a demo.
The District owns a 1995 Type II Engine that is still working well for the Department but due to age, the growth of the community and to get the best response possible, Lane recommended to shifting to a Type I as the first response. This engine would be added to the fleet.
He said NFPA standards require apparatuses be timed out after 25 years.
“NFPA is a guideline, it is not a law, but we have adopted NFPA standards for this department,” Lane said. Lane added in an email, “The SLRFD has and will continue to use the NFPA Standards as our map to provide our best practices, as much as we are able both financially and applicable.”
Lane said the ability to carry five responders versus three is the biggest difference. The pump, tank and hose capacity is similar but it is a 2003. It also has four-wheel disc brakes, instead of drum brakes, and many other upgrades. It has been off the front lines since 2014 but was sent to California for wildlfire last year and worked great. It is two-wheel drive. It is not as tall and since the membership is older, having it lower to the ground will help. It is being sold because they have newer equipment.
Lane said there are six other departments looking at it that are combination or paid departments. It has been well maintained, pulling the pump out and keeping it in a warm area until it stops freezing.
“I’m trying to be proactive,” Lane said. “It is just one of those things that I want you to have the information on.”
The next regularly scheduled meeting is 6 p.m., June 15 at the Fire Hall. Visit seeleyfire.org for the agenda.
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