Commissioner: Sedgwick County could extend fire agreements with cities beyond August

As an Aug. 6 deadline draws closer for five cities to decide how to handle future fire protection agreements with Sedgwick County, a county commissioner said existing agreements are likely to be extended as long as the communities make progress on sustainable plans.

In May, Sedgwick County Commissioners voted to terminate existing Fire District 1 mutual and automatic aid agreements with Valley Center, Clearwater, Cheney, Colwich and Mount Hope after 90 days notice.

Those cities have the option of becoming taxpaying members of Fire District 1. The cities that choose to go this route would pay the county an extra 16.75 mills of tax revenue annually, an increase that would cost the owner of a $200,000 home an extra $385.25 in property taxes. All other Sedgwick County suburbs already are taxpaying members of Fire District 1. All members of the fire district pay the same amount in mills.

Or, they could agree to new terms for mutual and automatic aid agreements. Those options, as outlined by the county, would require each town to provide its own staffing and quality control measures to meet minimum safety standards. Or, they could simply allow the current agreements to expire, though that option would require each town to beef up its own volunteer or hybrid fire departments.

A spot check of the cities facing the August deadline show that some, if not all, are gathering information from city staff and feedback from residents.

Valley Center, for instance, has formed a committee that has met twice, according to Public Safety Director and Police Chief Lloyd Newman.

“Our goal as staff is to get as much information as possible and present to Council on July 7,” Newman said in a June 24 email to The Wichita Eagle. “There will be plenty of discussion (at that meeting). I can’t imagine they make a decision on that date, but they could.”

County commissioner Ryan Baty said in a June 25 phone interview with The Eagle that he recently sat in on a town hall meeting in Mount Hope.

He said he knows it will be difficult for any of the communities to have enough information to make a decision before the August deadline. And he thinks the Sedgwick County commissioners will be what he called good partners in the process as long as the cities are making progress.

Baty met with the Valley Center committee working on the topic earlier this week, and he said he liked the city’s approach.

“They had 15 to 18 questions about what participation in the fire district would look like,” he said.

Some of the most important questions, Baty said, were: Who would staff the station? Would there be a new fire station? What would the cost be if they were to ramp up their staff.

“I really appreciate the sincerity in which Valley Center is approaching the conversation,” Baty said.

If Valley Center joined the fire district, Baty said he thinks Sedgwick County would need to put in a new fire station and equipment within the city limits.

“We wouldn’t be able to service them from Park City or Maize, and we know that,” Baty said. “And we fully expect that we would have to invest in a new fire station and equipment in Valley Center.”

Valley Center now has what it considers a full-time paid fire department, with six full-time employees supplemented by part-time firefighters who are called upon as needed. At its May 19 City Council meeting, a couple of council members said they would like to see what it might cost to add three or four full-time employees and make the Valley Center Fire Department a 24/7 operation that didn’t need county fire support.

Issues such as whether Valley Center would want to maintain any of its firefighter staff if it went with county fire service remain to be resolved. But if Sedgwick County assumed operations at the Valley Center station, it would need to have living quarters for at least eight firefighters.

Another issue facing Valley Center and, potentially, other communities is that of identity.

“How does Valley Center keep its identity?” Baty said. “We could assume their staff and equipment. We’ve done that in other cities, like Bel Aire and Maize.”

He said he also knows that local fire service is very much a part of Valley Center’s identity.

The challenge for volunteer fire departments or those that are a mix of paid staff and volunteers is turnout.

“The Mount Hope fire chief stood up and spoke about turnout,” Baty said in reference to the town hall meeting he attended. “He said they used to have 20 to 25 people turn out. Now they have 15 on the roster and about only five who live in the city of Mount Hope. He acknowledged that if there was a structure fire in the city during the day they would have a difficult time responding to that.”

Baty said Sedgwick County has no problem working with volunteer fire departments, but the county cannot compromise the safety of firefighters or citizens.

In a previous interview, Baty said county firefighters have been responding to more and more mutual aid situations where volunteer fire departments don’t have enough boots on the ground to help. The expectation, he said, is that the volunteer fire department has at least 10 firefighters on the scene of a response within 10 minutes of getting the call.

“This is a national challenge,” Baty said. “This is not a challenge that is unique to Sedgwick County.”

Baty reiterated his position that as a county commissioner he is trying to do what is best for the taxpayers of Fire District 1, Sedgwick County taxpayers and the citizens in Valley Center, the only town he represents that isn’t already a taxpaying member of Fire District 1.

Regardless of how the fire service agreements with these five towns play out, county EMS will not be affected. EMS is run by Sedgwick County, not the fire district, and it is funded out of the county’s general fund. All county residents already pay into that service.