By Kate White
The Charleston Gazette
TEAYS VALLEY, W. Va. — The Teays Valley Volunteer Fire Department wants to leave the county’s fire board and become a nonprofit agency — something the chief says will probably make a lot of people mad.
“People will be upset about it... I could be wrong but it’s not a pleasant thing,” Chief John Smoot said. “I’m a nervous wreck about the uncertainty - we’re taking a giant leap here.”
A county fire board meeting will be at 7 p.m. tonight at the Putnam County 911 center in Winfield, where Smoot said an attorney will deliver the written request.
Smoot’s desire to withdraw from the board comes after several attempts to raise the annual county fire fee, which funds the county’s eight volunteer fire departments. Last month, commissioners denied the request for a second time this year. The fee hasn’t been raised in more than 20 years.
Currently, only 8 percent of the fire service fee is allocated to the Teays Valley Department, but about 32 percent of the accounts the board collects are from the Teays Valley district, Smoot said.
“If you choose not to participate in the fire board system they aren’t allowed to bill the accounts in your district,” he said.
The Teays Valley Fire District includes Teays Valley, Scott Depot, Teays, Bills Creek and parts of St. Albans, he said.
Smoot said he plans to fund the station through a subscription program, which would be optional for residents who are served by the station.
“We’re going to establish a billing system, almost like what they get now with the fire fee except they’ll get it in July,” he said. “It’s up to the community how much they want to pay us, they wouldn’t be obligated to pay it like they are the fire fee.
“If they choose not to pay then we very well may not have a fire department.”
Billy Parsons, the county’s fire service coordinator, found out about Smoot’s plan Wednesday morning and said she’s not sure it’s legal.
“I talked to the county attorney and she’s going to check on it,” Parsons said. “From what I understand, since [Teays Valley] isn’t incorporated ... they don’t have the authority to bill people. This is a county fee adopted by the commission - these people still live in the county and would still receive a county fee.”
The fire board was created in 1986, at the same time the annual fire fee was put in place, to regulate and disburse money the fee provided. The board must approve how departments spend all money they are allotted, Parsons said.
Parsons said when someone doesn’t pay the county’s fire fee they file a lawsuit against them, and Teays Valley wouldn’t “have anything to stand on.”
Smoot is upset about commissioners not raising the fee, Parsons said, but she believes this move could hurt other departments in the county.
“They’re not doing anything there, but hurting everyone else. Why does a department want everyone that surrounds them upset with them?” she said.
Smoot said he knows the move will decrease the amount of funds the fire board will have to distribute to departments, but because of insufficient manpower and money he believes he has no other option.
If the Teays Valley station becomes a nonprofit, Smoot said, they would be able to employ full-time firefighters.
“It’s not safe for our guys,” he said. “When the county wouldn’t do an increase and when the fire board wouldn’t support hiring career firefighters we didn’t have anywhere else to turn.”
If the move is approved, Smoot hopes commissioners will be forced to see a need for the increase. He said Teays Valley would continue to provide mutual aid to all departments in the county.
“I really think most of the people raising hell about the increase are from our area,” he said. “If we’re taken out of the equation maybe it will give commissioners more of an opportunity [to raise the fee].”
Copyright 2011 Charleston Newspapers