Publishers Note: This is an excellent history of the Fire Department by Charlie Wilson, dated 12/19/10
A little history might help put the Jacksonville Department level of service and funding issues in perspective.
In 2003, the Jacksonville City Council (Mayor Jim Lewis, Councilors Bill Leep, Donna Schatz, Dick Ames, Dean Paddison) enacted the Public Safety Act which transitioned the Jacksonville Fire Department from a volunteer Fire Department administered by a paid fire chief to a 24/7 fire department with five paid fire fighter positions including the fire chief augmented with interns and volunteers. Since 2003, the several different city councils have been faced with funding for the fire department including legal challenges to the Public Safety Surcharge, adoption of an interim fire levy in 2004, and return to a Surcharge in 2006. The city council also made several internal staffing and administrative organizational changes impacting operations including staff morale. Over this time period, the Fire Department also faced increased operations cost for salaries and benefits along with equipment and ongoing operations. These additional costs resulted in the draw down of public safety reserves along with an increased public safety surcharge from $15 to $20.
In 2010 with Fire Department reserves projected to be exhausted, along with the need to increase staffing levels to handle fire and emergency response calls, the current city council undertook a comprehensive study of the Fire Department operations resulting in a proposed 8-member Fire Department paid by a proposed combination of a fire levy and surcharge. Jacksonville voters rejected the levy in May, 2010. In response, the city council reduced the number of fire fighter positions from the proposed 8-member fire department to 6, believing that a 6-member fire department was the minimum level necessary to sustain a 24/7 fire services program. To implement this 6-member fire department, the City Council, by a 6-1 vote, increased the Public Safety surcharge (Fire Services surcharge) from $15 to $31. The votes in favor were Councilors Linda Meyers, Paul Becker, Dan Winterburn, Donna Schatz, Chris Gilman, and Mayor Garrett. John Dodero was the only councilor to oppose the increased staffing and surcharge.
This action by the City Council finally brought stability to the Fire Department staffing and operations with an identified reliable funding source. The fire department staff has fully trained firefighters with Basic and Intermediate Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certificates. The Fire Department is capable of handling both fire suppression and basic level emergency medical response calls. The Fire Department is supported by mutual aid agreements with surrounding fire agencies including County Fire District #3 (Central Point), County Fire District #9 (Jacksonville/Ruch) and Medford Fire Department. For a small city the size of Jacksonville, the Jacksonville Fire Department provides a reliable level of fire protection and medical emergency response services @ at an annual per parcel cost to residents of $372. Per parcel cost in every other City in Jackson County are significantly higher, about $660 annually for a parcel with an taxable value of $200,000.
While returning back to an all volunteer department to handle structural fires sounds like a good cost savings idea, the population demographic of Jacksonville just does not support such a return. Please note that 90% of the calls are for medical assistance and accidents, not structure or wildland fires. These types of calls require a more immediate medical response to potentially save lives by providing medical intervention and medical transport, when required.