By Matt Lakin
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
HEISKELL, Tenn. — Volunteer firefighters in Heiskell have answered the call for 30 years. They’ll vote Saturday on whether to keep answering those calls.
“We have to decide, do we start charging subscription rates?” said Knox County Commissioner R. Larry Smith, who serves on the department’s board of directors. “Some people are really having mixed feelings about it.”
The meeting begins at 7:30 a.m. at the fire hall on Raccoon Valley Road.
The fire department, organized in 1981, covers about 1,500 homes in North Knox County, spread over an area of about 16 square miles. Its charter provides for funding from donations and grants only.
Those wells have nearly run dry as equipment ages and costs continue to mount. Rural/Metro Fire Department dispatchers, who serve most of Knox County under a contract for subscription service, traditionally have dispatched the community’s fire and other emergency calls for free. That could change soon.
Rural/Metro has only about 50 subscribers in Heiskell and can’t justify continuing to dispatch calls
for free in a community where most residents don’t subscribe for service, Rural/ Metro Fire Chief Jerry Harnish said. On top of that, a new fire insurance rating expected later this year for the county won’t be broken up by communities as in the past.
“If we’re not the legal fire department serving the community, those subscribers would not be able to benefit from the rating,” Harnish said. “The subscribers in the balance of the county have been underwriting the cost of the communications center. Were it not for the communications center, Heiskell’s rating would be much lower.
“We told them that leaves three options. They can start up a subscription system themselves. They can accept our offer to merge, and we would hire their guys and maintain the trucks and the sense of community identity. The third option is they can close up shop. If they close up shop, the county’s going to end up needing fire service, butwewouldn’tbetheonlyoption.The County Commission would have to vote on whether to expand our jurisdiction.”
The Karns community in West Knox County doesn’t pay for dispatch service but has a larger volunteer fire department that can assist on calls. The Seymour Volunteer Fire Department handles some calls in South Knox County but answers most of its calls in Sevier and Blount counties, Harnish said.
Smith said he can’t see any way the Heiskell department could afford to pay for dispatch service on donations.
“Our budget right now runs about $30,000,” Smith said. “Last year Knox County gave us about half of that through a grant. We estimated the cost for dispatch service would be around $26,000.”
Costs like that would require a donation drive every week — still with no guarantee of paying the bills.
“We have spaghetti dinners and a rummage sale every year,” Smith said. “But the board of directors are pretty much the main givers. If you take away Knox County and the board of directors, you probably don’t have $5,000-$7,000 in donations to support it.”
The Karns Volunteer Fire Department faced a similar dilemma last year and ultimately resorted to charging subscription rates. Chief Ken Marston said that change turned out to be just the boost the department needed.
“In July, we’ll start building a new fire station,” he said. “That’ll cut our response times by 12-15 minutes. We’re purchasing a brand-new engine, our first since 2005. We hope to have that in about eight months. We plan to hire two new firefighters by July to staff the station during the day, and we’ll continue to staff at night with volunteers. We hope to hire a training officer, and we have the money now to send our guys to training. There are happier days for the Karns Volunteer Fire Department coming.”
Smith said he’s encouraged by the Karns department’s experience but wonders whether Heiskell can repeat that success. Karns boasts more businesses, together with about 15,000 homes, 13 schools, the main Pellissippi State Community College campus and the Ben Atchley Veterans Home.
Smith estimates Heiskell’s subscription rates would probably run about 7 cents per square foot, with the average home coming in at around $140. That’s assuming most households participate.
“To make it work, we would need about $125,000, and at least 40 percent of the community would have to contribute,” Smith said. “Can we get 40 percent to support us? Karns has businesses. We don’t have hardly any businesses. You can count on one hand the number of homes (in Heiskell) valued at over $100,000. We held a community meeting last month, and about 30 people were in attendance. They did not seem to mind paying for service. Can we go from $30,000 to $125,000? That’s the question.”
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