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Letter to the Editor: Look into the future
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There has been considerable discussion of funding fire with an annual assessment rather than through ad valorem taxes as at present. Many sides to this question have been presented; however what to me is the most salient question has not been touched on!
At present fire/rescue is one entity under the control of the fire chief. Its proposed budget is around $4.5 million. The new proposed assessment is just over $2 million.
Passing the assessment would effectively separate the two parts of this department. This would mean that a medical rescue person could not act as an assistant fireman. It would mean that a fireman could not act as an assistant to a medical rescue person. Even if the fire chief insists that this would not happen, the firemen’s union would regard the funds raised by the assessment as solely for the benefit of the fire part of the department.
This separation, inside a couple of years, would certainly result in the request for additional personnel to cover the contribution from each part of the department today to the other part.
Additional personnel is being requested now. I have not seen justification for this increase. We would see additional requests when personnel in one part of the department could not be used to fill in when needed in the other part of the department. This would surely happen, given a little time from the separation achieved by a different source of funding for each half.
Many good reasons have been given by others to reject the assessment even if at the present time with the present council, these expenditures would remain under the cap. A different council could view this question differently. We don’t want to take this chance!
George E. (Ted) Willis, Marco Island
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Ted Willis is one of the most intelligent people on the island and this assessment is right on point.
#1 Posted by marcoobserver on August 15, 2008 at 11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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