Local firefighters seek increase in MSBU funding

Local volunteer fire departments met with county commissioners Tuesday in a public workshop to discuss raising the MSBU assessments paid by local home and business owners. MSBU stands for Municipal Service Benefits Unit. It’s an annual fee paid by every homeowner in the county to help fund volunteer fire departments and medical rescue units. The fees were last increased in 2002 – that was the first increase since the fees were created in 1987. Firefighters say the assessment has to be increased to help cover the increasing costs of running a fire department. Their costs on everything from fire trucks to equipment to training goes up almost every year, yet the amount local property owners pay for fire service does not reflect that. Just outfitting one fireman costs almost 7000 dollars. Not only that, but volunteer firefighters are performing more services, ranging from first responder care to water rescue and that increases their costs. The St. George Island fire department, which has 26 firefighters, says its budget is now 155 thousand dollars a year, but MSBU only covers 75 thousand of that which requires a lot of grant writing and fund raisers to make up the difference. And as firefighters pointed out, homeowners save much more in fire insurance than they pay out in MSBU by having fully functioning fire departments in their areas. Homeowners currently pay 42 dollars per home; firefighters are seeking to increase that to 57 dollars. Commercial establishments pay 75 dollars per building with a maximum annual payment of 300 dollars – they would like to see that increased to 100 dollars per building with a 500 dollar maximum. Motels and hotels pay 7 dollars a unit with a maximum annual assessment of 300 dollars, firefighters would like to see that increased to 10 dollars a unit with a maximum payment of 750 dollars a year. Possibly the most controversial request is for the county to establish a 30 dollar annual fee for vacant lots – those currently pay nothing for fire protection though fire fighters say the vast majority of the calls they respond to are on vacant lots. County commissioners seem willing to give the firefighters an increase, though commissioners seem skeptical about assessing undeveloped lots. They said they would consider all of the requests at a public hearing which they will likely schedule sometime in July.