MOULTRIE — The Volunteer Fire Association, which is contracted by Colquitt County to provide fire services, has proposed hiring full-time firefighters.

Colquitt County Administrator Chas Cannon presented the VFA’s proposal during a budget session last week. The VFA’s budget rose from $1.4 million in the current year to a requested $1.9 million for the coming year.

Included in the request was $550,000 to use to employ full-time firefighters, which Cannon pointed out to the commissioners.

Last year, the VFA’s $1.4 million budget included $119,000 to pay for a team of four firefighters that would be on call five days a week and receive a part-time salary.

VFA President Dustin Hart told the commissioners that the four-man crew had been in operation since August of 2024, working Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The part-time crew is posted at the newly established Station 12, located at the main fire office on Veterans Parkway.

Hart said the team at Station 12 responds to all fire calls and accidents.

“Just this year alone, that truck or that station has responded to 106 calls and, out of those 106 calls, 60 of those they were either the first arriving unit or the only unit on that call,” he said.

Hart said the VFA wants to turn the Station 12 crew and its truck into a full-time, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week station. He said that they had worked on the proposal for months.

“Of the volunteers that we have, we have 43 that are under the age of 35 and this is strictly volunteers not including Station 12. Of those, 43, 11 show up more than 40% of the time,” he said.

He said, when working a structure fire, regardless of the type of building, they need a minimum of 5 or 6 people.

“You can see how taxing that is on our volunteers. And to go a little step further, 36 of our volunteers are between 35 and 45, and only nine show up at least 40% of the calls, that are capable of fighting fire,” Hart said.

He said they have members that they rely on heavily who only drive the engines, pumpers and tankers.

“They’re just as important as our firefighters. We’ve got to have water to fight fire. The man-power is kind of where we’re losing our numbers at,” he added.

He said if Station 12 goes 24-7, it will guarantee that there will be a truck going to every fire in the county.

“During the day, we will have a four-man crew when our volunteer numbers are a little bit down because of work schedules and then, at night, we’re planning on a two-man crew,” Hart said.

Saving homeowners money

Hart said the VFA was trying to improve its ISO rating, which is a score assigned to communities by the Insurance Services Office. It basically measures how well a community’s fire department is prepared to handle fires.

According to bankrate.com, “If your fire department has a strong score from the ISO, this suggests to your insurance provider that the likelihood of your home being destroyed by a fire is low. It could still happen, of course, but the chances are not as high as they could be if you lived somewhere with a poor ISO score.”

Insurance companies use the ISO rating to determine the premiums they charge homeowners for home insurance. The ratings range from 1 (the best fire protection) to 10 (no protection at all). A lower score means lower insurance premiums.

“We are currently a 5 (in) about 70% of the county area. … Which is pretty unheard of for a volunteer fire association, across the state,” Hart said. “There’s not many that can say they’re a 5, much less a 5 at 70%”

Hart said the VFA confidently foresees going down to a 4 ISO with a very high possibility that they can become a 3. 

He said the ISO rating is directly related to the supplies, equipment and the people they have and the services they’re able to offer.

In 2020, the VFA acquired five tankers and then five more in 2024.

“Because of the addition of the new tankers that we got, we feel pretty certain that we are really close to getting an ISO of 3,” he said.

Commissioner Mike Boyd wanted to know if the addition of the full-time firefighters would help the ISO rating and Hart responded that the entire addition of Station 12 does.

“But not only is is gonna help us lower the ISO number, it’s gonna take our 70% coverage to close to 80%,” he said, speaking about the man-power to fight fires in the county.

Shifting the tax burden

Cannon pointed out that the VFA is funded through the Special Service District, an area that includes all of Colquitt County except the City of Moultrie. Residents and businesses in the SSD pay an additional tax to fund fire response, a portion of downtown development and compliance. Because the SSD brings in only a little money, the increased VFA budget would weigh heavily on it, Cannon said.

Currently, he said, the VFA purchases materials and capital items and is then reimbursed by the county. He proposed the county pay for those items directly with sales tax or capital projects money, thus avoiding the sales tax charged on the purchase.

“We have a contract and an agreement with them to provide a public service and a public benefit to us,” he said. “But what that would do would relieve the Special Service District a little bit of the funding impact on property tax and shift it to, basically, sales tax for these items.”

Cannon said the savings on sales tax and buying the materials for the VFA, competitively, could help reduce the cost of its budget a little and also benefit the SSD by not having to pay so much in property tax.

“But that’s kind of our thinking, if we could move forward with this, is how we would fund it, if y’all agree to it,” he said.

The root problem

Cannon said the reason for going from a volunteer department to a part-time and then a full-time department was because the VFA isn’t getting many volunteers anymore. Some of it, he said, is because there are increasing levels of standards that a person must meet to be a volunteer firefighter.

Hart said there is no difference in the training required for a volunteer firefighter and that required for a paid firefighter.

Cannon said, “So, does the County want to provide 24-hour response for fire response? That’s kind of a policy question for us. We’ve gotta have data and some metrics. Feedback from the population. But that’s kinda what this discussion’s about.”

Hart said they were to the point where, on average, the same 10 or so people show up to every involved structure fire.

“We were tired by the end of last year. You see, we had 64 building fires and this year, so far, we’ve had 25. So, we’re almost on the same track this year,” he said indicating a slide with the VFA’s stats.

Cannon asked if there was any kind of partnership with the City of Moultrie, aside from mutual aid.

Hart replied, most of the City’s fire trucks can’t go off highway because they’re so heavy. So, the use of them was kind of limited. He said they’ve used them with commercial fires. However, any fire a VFD’s responded to and requested the City’s help, they’ve come and assisted.

“Of course, they’re like anybody else in public safety, they’re hurting for help, too. So, they can’t send but maybe one or two guys out there with a piece of equipment. The time that they can stay there is pretty limited,” he said.

Commissioner Paul Nagy said, “Well, we’ve known for a while with this volunteer situation, it’s been moving in this direction. And our number one responsibility is keeping people safe.”

“I don’t want to step quite into the County Fire Department yet,” Cannon said. “We want to try to maintain this relationship where it’s a contracted service as long as we can.” 

He said they were starting to mesh into going to a full-time situation and moving away from volunteer.

“I would prefer us to keep this arrangement as long as we can. The contracted service. I think they’re in agreement with that. Stepping off into a department is a whole ‘nother level of expense and bureaucracy,” said Cannon.