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Could fire district disputes be nearing an end?
The Bourbon County Commissioners during their Tuesday meeting received a report from the county attorney on whether the county has authority over fire districts.
The issue has been brewing for several months, as members of the Drywood and Scott townships have asked the commissioners to move the Garland Fire District line out of Scott Township. According to Scott Township Trustee Don Banwart and Drywood Township Trustee Darrell Bloomfield, Garland Fire District has raised its mill levy more than other districts.
The men also have said response time is also an issue and they have been denied access to any budget information regarding the district.
County Attorney Justin Meeks said he has learned the Garland Fire District was established by a published statute in 1968 and has been active since then. An active fire district board was established in 2013 after the department underwent a major change in personnel.
Meeks said K.S.A. Chapter 80 gives authority to the district, "but basically not a lot of discretion to the county commissioners."
"They don't have the ability to really do a lot with regards to overseeing of that fire district because of the statutory authority set up back in the 60s with regards to that district," Meeks said. "But Scott Township and Drywood Township are an auditing entity of that district."
Meeks said the district must have "an active meeting with regards to a vote by those board members to ask for an audit to be done on the Garland Fire District."
After the vote is taken in a public forum, the request then would go to the Garland Fire District, which has to give the information to the townships.
"I don't think Drywood or Scott townships have done that yet," Meeks said.
He said he also researched the Kansas Open Meetings Act and learned that individuals have a right to ask to look at that information, but the governing body that holds the information has the right to charge a fee.
"But maybe if the Scott and Drywood townships would ask for that information, that would solve that problem," Meeks said.
Bloomfield has said in the past that he has asked to see the financial reports of the fire district, but was told there would be a fee, which he has said is an unreasonable amount. On May 12, Meeks said he and former County Attorney Terri Johnson had looked into that issue and the fee being charged is not out of line with what the county charges.
"Outside of that issue, there is a Chapter 19," Meeks said. "Chapter 19 is a completely different animal in regards to fire districts."
Chapter 19 gives commissioners responsibility for fire districts within the county. The districts would perform as they currently do, but the county commissioners would have the authority to appoint fire board members and also be the auditing agency. The county commission would not have authority over the day-to-day operations.
"You as commissioners have no ability to enforce what's going on within the townships or the fire districts and I don't think the fire districts or the townships would want that," Meeks said.
Meeks said, speaking as an attorney, Garland Fire District has the right to hire an attorney and has done that. The two townships also have that right, but to Meeks' knowledge, have not hired an attorney to get information legally. He said he represents the county, not the townships or any fire district.
"My same directive that I had last time I was here is that it's really hard for the commissioners to do anything under the chapter and how the fire districts have been set up," Meeks said. "There has been some misinterpretations of those statutes, but there have also been some on-point interpretations of those statutes. I believe there is some audit function that can be done by those two townships, but they also have to go through the procedures for that audit to occur."
He said he would need to have direction from the county commissioners to do more research on Chapter 19. He said he also would like to know how many fire districts in the state operate under Chapter 80, which is "substantially" different than Chapter 19. Meeks said all the districts in Bourbon County currently operate under Chapter 80.
"The last time I was here, I was getting 19 and 80 confused, also," Meeks said.
He said the county does not have the authority to change district boundary lines or dissolve fire districts.
"If the Garland district wants to change its boundaries, it has to go back through that process again," Meeks said. "It just can't be done by the six members of the elected board."
He said residents of the district have to sign a petition and there has to be a public notice.
Banwart said that process was done in 2004 when boundaries were changed to allow Scott Township Fire District to be organized. He said a petition was delivered to the county commissioners.
"Obviously, the township can hire an attorney to dispute what I'm saying, but I don't believe the proper procedure was followed," Meeks said. "I don't see the procedure done in 2004 that would allow for what is occurring."
Meeks said he believes under Chapter 80, the commissioners do not have the authority to change boundaries, but Banwart said he could provide Meeks with the records from 2004. Meeks said he would contact Dan Meara, who Banwart said was the attorney who assisted with the change.
"Just the more we could figure out to get this resolved," Commission Chair Barbara Albright said. "This just keeps going on and on and on and on and on. We need to know what we can do to resolve this. Safety becomes an issue, too."
Connie May, a Garland Fire District board member and assistant fire chief, said Garland Fire District consisted of the south portion of Scott Township and the north portion of Drywood Township. Banwart said in 2004 then-County Commissioner Robert Query said the change was being made so Garland would have enough funding to operate its fire district. Banwart said the change also had to be made because the Scott district was applying for a FEMA grant to purchase a new fire truck.
Banwart also said districts were changed throughout the entire county. At that time, Bourbon County Fire District 3 took over Uniontown District 1, Fulton and Bronson.
Those attending the meeting could not say whether Hiattville and Garland fire districts consented to the formation of the new Scott Township fire district.
"Garland's a special beast. It's within two townships, so that's why the law is different and how they're managed is different," Meeks.
"If they were all uniform, would that hurt any of them?" Albright asked. "You would still have the same fire chiefs, you would have your same fire department. Everybody would be fine, but under 19, we would be the auditing (agency)."
Meeks said that would make them all one county-wide department.
There are 10 fire chiefs: six fire chiefs in District 3, one each in Garland, Scott and Redfield and the city of Fort Scott.
Albright asked May and Bourbon County Fire District 3 Chief Delwin Mumbower if there would be an issue with the county becoming the auditing agency. Mumbower said he already provides an annual audit to the county. May said Garland also turns theirs into the county, too, but it was not clear if she meant the district's audit or budget.
Meeks recommended the commissioners become the auditing agency, but the individual fire district boards would continue to operate as they are currently. Mumbower said the commissioners already appoint members to the District 3 board.
"It would be business as usual for us," Mumbower said.
May asked why anyone wants to move the district boundary line, but Albright said the line would not be moved. Bloomfield said the township trustees want the line moved because residents in the northern portion of the district are not getting the response time they need.
"Where is the record for this response time?" May asked.
"We can't get anything from you because you won't show us anything," Bloomfield said.
Banwart showed a map he marked showing the distances between districts and the current district line.
He said the Scott Township Fire District would have quicker response to the Scott Township area that currently is in the Garland Fire District, but Mumbower said he has "major objections" to that statement.
May said everyone knows it's impossible to have a fire department five miles from any one area and moving the boundary would affect the taxes in her district.
"If we're going to talk about maps and responses and things like that, there's a lot more goes into it than putting an X on a map," Mumbower said. "There's a lot more to it. It's where those volunteers live in relation to their stations and how long it takes them to get to the station, get a truck out and get to those calls."
Because the rural departments are manned by volunteers, other considerations are the time of day and the day of the week, as many volunteers have full-time jobs.
"That's why I'm thinking, we need to get this resolved," Albright said. "Our most valuable resource is those volunteers."
The discussion turned to the issue of radio communication. Garland currently is operating on a separate frequency. Emergency Manager William Wallis also talked about the difficulty of trying to make a cell phone call from the Garland fire station to Fort Scott. Wallis recommended setting a date to conduct an extensive county-wide radio test in the Garland area with equipment upgrades that Fort Scott Fire Chief Paul Ballou is currently working on completing.
Wallis said he also would like to have a roster of all volunteer fire fighters and the hours they work.
"I want to know," Wallis said. "I don't want to know, I need to know because you people are the ones getting hammered about people not responding. That's how we need to start to fix the radio problems."
Albright said she has not been contacted about response time, but Wallis said the township trustees have been.
He later said the "window of time" when there are fewer volunteers available to respond to calls needs to be established provided to central dispatch to make mutual aid response more efficient.
May said she relays that information to Eric McKay, Scott Township Fire District chief, but Banwart said McKay is out of town most of the time. Wallis said the information should be going to central dispatch. May said she also calls dispatch.
Wallis said there are other "pockets" in the county -- including Fort Scott -- where radio communication is not available. He also said having Garland on a separate frequency is a problem because other departments can't hear radio communication from Garland volunteers.
May said the district installed a new tower which worked well until January when the county started making upgrades.
"It started falling off again," May said.
She said she Garland radios were picking up communication from Nevada, Mo., to Pittsburg. Wallis said May also was picking up radio communication from someone in Arkansas.
Albright expressed her and the commissioners' appreciation to the volunteers and businesses that allow volunteers to leave their jobs to respond to calls.
She said the commissioners need to know about "uniformity" of all the districts.
"Not that we're going to do it, but we can't do it if we don't know more about it," she said. "We have 11 chiefs who are doing a terrific job of managing their department and they all have different situations they are dealing with, from terrain (affecting radio communication) to the times volunteers work. There's just a lot of issues and each of your district is unique, so we need to make sure they're functioning at 100 percent capacity."
She asked Meeks to do more research. He said he could return with more information the second week of June.
Albright said the county-wide test needs to be done "immediately." Wallis said he would notify commissioners of the date and time of the test when it is set.