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DENIED: Funds not available for Paris Fire Department automatic aid proposal

by MyParisTexas
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The recently presented automatic aid proposal between the Paris City Fire Department and Lamar County will not pass this years’ budget due to a lack of funds. 

“Without a significant tax-increase or borrowing more money, there is just not a way to afford it in this budget,” said Lamar County Judge Brandon Bell. 

“It’s unfortunate we couldn’t come to an agreement,” said Paris Fire Chief Michael Vogel, “they came to me, and I gave them a proposal but its business as usual in the City of Paris.” 

Bell said in his proposed budget, being finalized Aug 30, he plans for the county to pay off a portion of their $5 million in debt. The portion would represent approximately $1.75 million of $5 million total debt.  

“The proposal of automatic aid is a very serious issue and one that I do not take lightly. I have kept an open mind with this proposal, but the county doesn’t have the money,” said Bell.

He further stated, “we have new mandates and critical infrastructure needs we have to account for in this budget.”

While Bell is open to re-visiting the proposal next year, understanding the importance of what the automatic aid proposal would provide, he said there is the current mutual aid agreement in place. 

However, Vogel said those contracts and how the Paris Fire Department responds would be re-visited in the near future. 

“In 2018, it cost the department over 240 man-hours in mutual aid,” said Vogel, “we have standard operating guidelines within the city, and so we are going to do the same for operating outside the city.” 

“I would like for Lamar County to know I believe the safety of firefighters and citizens should be a top priority. The county is on a 39.40 tax rate which is lower than counties around us. We are going under a 3.5 percent revenue cap mandated by state legislators next year. This will make any future additions to the counties budget difficult after this year,” Lamar County Commissioner Ronnie Bass said. 

After news broke of the proposal, the community was in a buzz of discussion.  A poll run with myparistexas.com, clearly showed that most county citizens were in favor of the agreement and cost. 

The overall cost of the proposed agreement would have only cover that of the career firefighters’ wages. The cost absorbed by Paris FD would’ve been the upkeep, maintenance of the apparatus’ used, bookkeeping and other general costs associated with the running of a truck and personnel. 

As previously reported, the overall cost was relatively low compared to the full costs of running a station and the proposal not only boasted immediate aid to volunteer departments for the response to structure fires, but it also added in the factor for training volunteer firefighters at no cost to the county departments or county budget.  

It’s believed that once the county begins to see revenue from other proposed projects, and paying off debts, there should be more money flowing into the budgets. However, with reasonable funds expected to flow into the budget over the next 12-18 months, some have begun to question the motive to deny now and risking a higher cost in the future. 

“As Lamar county grows, we must keep up with service provisions such as law enforcement growth, emergency medical service needs, and fire department needs. As traffic increases from the growth, we must also improve our county roads for our citizens. Growing can sometimes be costly to our budgets. People pay taxes for services; this fire agreement is one step to improve response when people are having the worst day of their life. I don’t want them to suffer because of a bad decision,” Bass said.

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