By David Fleet
Editor
Groveland Twp. — On Monday night the Groveland Township Board of Trustees were presented a comprehensive evaluation of the township fire department.
At a cost of $4,000 on Jan. 9, the township retained Rich Marinucci, of the Firefighters Safety Officers Association to study the township fire department.
“It’s clear we have to know what we’re going to do going forward,” said Bob DePalma, township supervisor. “I wanted an objective third party with no specific objective except to look at the fire department and decide if there is something we can do differently that’s better. If not, we have to determine what we’re going to be doing with the millage.”
Chief Richard Marinucci has more than 47 years of experience in the fire service. He served nearly 25 years as the Fire Chief of Farmington Hills. He was also Chief of Northville Township for 7.5 years. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Fire Department Safety Officers Association.
The study found the budget of the fire department is far from excessive, the bulk of the budget goes to personnel costs with the majority of income from property taxes. Based on the review, the only way to save significant money is to reduce personnel costs through staffing reductions, however, Marinucci did not recommend this.
“The career staffing is at bare bones and were it not for the dedication of the firefighters, especially Chief Mason, there are times the stations would not be staffed,” wrote Marinucci.
The EMS provided to the community is a valuable service, he wrote.
Of the 13 area fire departments in Northern Oakland County, the millage rate is in the middle, the department is the smallest yet have 43% more runs per-capita than any all neighboring departments in the group.
“For the size of population we have, there are much higher numbers of runs per-capita that we represent,” said Bob DePalma. “It’s a huge number, it accounts for about 400 runs a year.”
The study was in advance of a vote on the renewal of fire department millage which expires in December 2024. The current millage is 3.5 mills which was approved by voters in 2000. A temporary fire millage hike of .44 mills was approved by the township board of trustees in 2011 due to a significant drop in property values after 2007. The millage has since been returned to 3.5 mills and had received one time boosts from Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response or SAFER Grant, American Rescue Plan Act funds and COVID money.
If the mileage stays at 3.5, there would be times where one station will not be staffed. This will impact response times. The community will slowly grow the fire department over the years with the growth of the Tech Park and normal SEV growth.
Another option is an increase in the millage, since the fire department currently runs $187,000 in the red. As a result, the fire chief would be full-time, vehicle replacement is funded from fire budget and adjust the budget to cover the existing needs with the fire millage.
“The fire department cannot operate the way it is going forward unless the Tech Park is up and running, which is not going to happen in a year,” said DePalma. “Either change the way the fire department operates now or have a millage increase to keep it the ways it is.”
The full report is available at the township.