County agrees to separate fire districts - now some districts want to raise rates

Some area of the county may soon be paying more for fire protection than others.

County commissioners last week agreed to separate the 7 fire districts in the county so that each one can levy a different MSBU assessment for properties within their district.

The MSBU assessments are levied on every home and business in Franklin County to help pay for fire protection.        

Currently homeowners county-wide pay 50 dollars a year for fire protection; the cost is 10 dollars for undeveloped lots and 100 dollars for most businesses.

Under the new rule, fire districts will now have the right to seek increases from the homeowners within their own districts – St. George Island and Alligator Point have already requested that an election be held in May to increase assessments from 50 dollars to 95 dollars per home.

Fire Departments say the change was needed because the current county-wide assessment is not providing enough money to pay for the level of service that some of the districts are required to provide.

Alligator point and St. George Island were seeing the biggest shortfalls because they are required to have expensive ladder trucks because of the number of taller homes in their districts.

St. George Island is also required to have two fire stations and provides water rescue service which adds to their annual costs.

County commissioners are also considering a plan to put MSBU assessments on local tax bills to reduce the number of people who are not paying the assessment.

Currently the MSBU assessments are sent out separately from the tax bills, and that has led to the problem of thousands of the assessments not being paid in a timely manner which means local fire departments aren’t getting the money they need when they need it.

Unpaid MSBU assessments are placed as a lien on the property and are paid when the property is sold.

If the MSBU were placed on the tax bill, then they would be paid at the same time property owners pay their taxes which would be good for the fire departments.

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