The Columbus Dispatch
MARNE, Ohio — The trucks sat idle inside the closed Madison Township fire station today, the jackets and boots and helmets lining the walls, as single locksmith worked outside, changing the key codes needed to enter the once-busy station.
It’s not because there weren’t any emergencies in the township of about 3,200 located just east of Newark in Licking County.
It’s because the three township trustees voted to disband its local volunteer fire department and instead enter into a contract with neighboring Hanover Volunteer Fire Department, a private nonprofit department, to provide fire and emergency medical services to its residents.
The move follows a July 1 recommendation to the trustees from township Administrator Mark Van Buren, who said it will save Madison Township more than $100,000 annually and provide residents with better service.
According to response-time data provided by the Licking County Regional 911 center, charting calls for service from more than 600 runs between June 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015, Hanover averaged one minute, 15 seconds from the time a unit was dispatched until the time it left the station. Madison Township’s response time was nearly three times longer, at 3:39 during about 550 runs over the same time period.
Additionally, Hanover is staffed around the clock, seven days a week with paid staff, while Madison’s station is staffed with paid part-timers only from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
The move is “about efficiency first and cost-savings second,” Van Buren said. “If this increased run times, I wouldn’t do it.”
Financially, Van Buren reported that the volunteer department, funded by a township fire levy, was spending more than $53,000 above what the levy raised in 2014, and was projected to lose nearly $69,000 in 2015.
The members of Madison Township’s fire department think it’s all a smokescreen.
“It’s a personality conflict between the trustees and the fire administration, Chief Darrin Decker and his brother, Capt. David Decker,” said Nick Garver, who until today was Madison Township’s other fire captain.
The decision comes after months of investigation into the department by the Licking County prosecutor’s office.
Van Buren said the township’s decision to disband the fire department and hire Hanover has nothing to do with the investigation.
It has, however, caused much frustration and suspicion.
The township trustees hired consultant Steve Little in October to look into the township’s organizational structure and provide recommendations about how to improve efficiency and improve employee relations.
Little released a preliminary report that was critical of the fire department in December.
“I heard many allegations of mismanagement, bullying, sexual harassment and sexual activity in the fire house. and even assault,” Little said in the report. “Those allegations were made by multiple folks that were interviewed.”
Little also wrote of “reports of taking fire trucks or medics into the city to run errands without being appropriately staffed or to inappropriate locations was a common allegation.”
Madison Township paid to extend Little’s contract at the request of the Licking County Prosecutor’s office, and a joint investigation with Little and the prosecutor’s office has been ongoing since January.
“The original focus of Steve Little’s investigation was on disciplinary matters,” said assistant Licking County prosecutor Mark Zanghi.
No criminal charges have been filed as a result of the allegations in Little’s December report, but “any of those could be used as a basis for a disciplinary action,” said Zanghi.
Garver said the report from Van Buren, who was hired in February after Little’s report recommended the creation of a township administrator position, is only a means to an end.
“Ask the trustees or the administrator if they’ve ever met with the fire administration about financial concerns,” said Garver. “That answer would be no. There has been no substantive conversation about money with the fire department in the last decade.”
He also said it was unfair to use Madison Township’s response times of the past year as indicative of service. “We would normally have about 50 men in gear,” Garver said. “Effective this week, it was down to 28, with only 22 with fire gear, due to attrition. People are thinking, ‘I risk my life, volunteer my time and they jerk me around anyway? It’s not worth it.”
According to the terms of the contract signed today, Madison Township will pay the Hanover volunteer fire department $150,000 annually to provide fire and EMS services.
Madison Township also will pay Hanover Chief Brian Spellman $12,000 a year to serve as the township’s fire prevention officer.
With the additional income, Van Buren said Hanover will hire additional personnel to cover Madison Township, and will eventually staff Madison’s station and use its equipment.
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