Double Springs struggling to collect fire dues

DOUBLE SPRINGS        -  Double Springs town officials and fire department personnel are expressing concern that a significant percentage of those living in the city’s fire coverage area, but not in the town limits are not paying their fire dues, yet are receiving fire protection services.
Currently, 870 county residents live within the Double Springs fire coverage area, but not in the Double Springs town limits. Only 315  of those residents paid their $60 annual fire dues last year, meaning only 36.67 percent are paying, stressed Town Clerk Kim Ownby.
Town officials are sending out notices this month to residents urging them to pay their fire dues, Ownby pointed out.
“We’re obligated to cover the city limits, but we cover also outside the city limits and these are the people who are paying the dues,” Double Springs Mayor Elmo Robinson pointed out.
“It’s to make sure they are covered,” he noted. “I hope we never get to a point where we have to cut our coverage down because we don’t have enough funds to pay the fire department.”
Fire department personnel are also emphasizing these dues do not pay salaries or wages for firefighters, but are used to pay for truck maintenance and necessary equipment.
A breakdown in a letter sent out with the notices shows that bunker gear costs $3,500 per firefighter, which must be replaced every 10 years; A self-contained breathing apparatus costs $6,750 per firefighter, which must be tested every three to five years;
Pump tests on trucks cost $350 per truck annually. Truck maintenance has already cost the department $12,000 this year.   A 50-foot section of fire hose costs $350 and medical supplies cost an average $1,000 a year.
The LUCAS device, which performs automatic chest compressions during CPR, costs $15,000, with another price tag of $33,000 attached for extrication tools, which must be tested annually, according to Double Springs Fire Chief Brandon Lewis, who presented the figures to the Alabamian.
“As you can see, it costs a lot of money to operate a fire department,” Lewis noted.
Double Springs firefighters, he added, average 24-30 calls per month, including fires, motor vehicle accidents and medical calls.
“The money collected from dues helps us to serve all residents in our coverage area and also assist our neighboring departments,” Lewis added.
“Please consider paying your fire dues, so we can continue serving you with a high level of service,”  Lewis urged residents.
“A lot of that equipment is very expensive,” Robinson stated, “and we’re having to replace quite a bit of it.
“That’s just a part of fire equipment,” the mayor continued. “It runs out of date so often, and you have to replace it or you’re liable for anything that might happen to a firefighter.”
Robinson stressed that the dues the fire department receives does not come close to covering their expenses.
“So we (as a city) have to contribute some, too,” the mayor said, adding the town provides equipment to the department as needed.
“They come to us and tell us what they need, and we buy it,” Robinson stated.
Robinson stressed the funding the town provides the department does not near cover their expenses.
For 2022, the Double Springs Fire Department  answered a total of 313 calls, including 106 fire-related, 207 medical and 65 calls providing mutual aid, according to figures provided by the department.
Of those calls, 165 were located in the town limits, while 71 of those calls were in the fire coverage area, but not in the town limits, the figures indicated.
Ownby recalled that 380 residents living outside the town limits, but in the fire coverage area were paying fire dues in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed things.  For 2020, the year the pandemic began, only 134 residents paid fire dues, increasing to 285 in 2021 and then 315 in 2022, still a small percentage, Ownby pointed out.

Residents urged to update addresses

“We bill a bunch,” the clerk stated. “The thing is, we don’t have a lot of people’s mailing addresses. We just have their physical address, so we send (the dues notices) out to whatever physical address they have and then a lot of them get sent back because we don’t have their mailing address.”
Some of the fire dues notices the town sends out are returned because the resident has moved or has not updated their address, town officials said.
“If you know you are in our fire district and you are not getting a bill, let us know,” Ownby said, “because the only way I have of doing this is knowing these people, and I don’t know everybody.
“Every year, we will have a number of fire due cards that are returned to us, because  it says there is no mailing receptacle or that they have left no forwarding address,” pointed out Lt. Erik Gilbreath of the Double Springs Fire Department.
Those who need to update their addresses are being urged to call Double Springs Town Hall at (205) 489-5447. Those mailing in fire dues can send them to Double Springs Town Hall, P.O. Box 279, Double Springs, Ala. 35553.
“These dues are very important for small municipalities on a tight budget,”  Ownby said.