When the Guilford County Board of Commissioners got together on Thursday, April 18 to discuss the upcoming fiscal budget that will take effect on July 1, it became clear that there won’t be a property tax increase; however, taxes that many commissioners seemed to think must go up are the taxes charged by the various fire districts across Guilford County.
Several commissioners said they’ve been hearing from firefighters about the hardships currently facing departments – especially due to massive cost increases in the vehicles and equipment used to fight fires.
Commissioners have been hearing that a fire engine that may have cost $350,000 not long ago, may now cost nearly twice that much.
The same goes for the gear being used.
Commissioner Mary Beth Murphy said she’d met with a group of firefighters and had a long discussion about their concerns. She noted that even everyday items – like toilet paper – had significantly increased in price and was eating into the departments’ budgets.
The fire departments are also facing increased labor costs because they aren’t seeing anywhere the number of volunteers that they could have expected a quarter of a century ago.
Commissioner Alan Perdue, who was director of Guilford County Emergency Services before becoming a county commissioner, said that most departments use a combination of paid firefighters and volunteers. However, he added, with it being much harder to find volunteers, that drives labor costs up.
It’s likely that a good number of fire districts will seek an increase in fire district taxes this year given these considerations.
The Guilford County Board of Commissioners will ultimately decide which fire districts, if any, will be allowed tax increases for fiscal 2024-2025.
Reading this caused me to ask , just what is a pay scale for firemen and senior firemen including bonuses?
It’s not much. Most of them have to work side jobs to make ends meet.
It is time to consolidate and create a Guilford County Fire Department. The small towns lack volunteers.
Has Commisioner Murphy been in the twilight zone? Surely she can find and use a better example than toilet paper! Are the voters this stupid in both city and county to continue voting these people into office?
To be fair, she did mention other rising costs as well at the meeting.
The County has mucho dinero extorted from the taxpayers, to support essential services; non-profits are not one.
Just make me King of Guilford County.
But the non-profits ensure voter turnout for Skip and the other dems. See how this works?
Yeah, day doo. Buuuut, if more than 15,000 or so people bother to show up (out of 200,000+) at the polls, this will be voted down.
Well here we go again. This happened to the Mcleansville fire district several years ago when Alan Branson voted for a backroom sleaze deal to raise the fire tax on us.,Ms Murphy do not repeat Bransons mistake it was a mistake then and will be a mistake now. We are over taxed in this county already
Maybe you should attend your neighborhood annual Fire Meetings Mr. Gann. You should know your community needs and how the departments are spending their monies since you are such an expert in taxation. The Board of Commissioners makes a decision based on facts that come from the Department’s Elected Representatives. Cost are rising and everyone is suffering to make ends meet. Maybe you should ask the current board about tax reevaluation and fund balance. No tax increase touted strongly by leadership. Remember it is election year. Wait to see what you get next year. I believe you will see a huge increase in property taxes. The democrats have depleted the Fund Balance in Guilford County. Do your homework Mr. Gann
IF they would spend our money like it were their money & not the easy come easy GO way I think things would be a lot different !!