| Updated: 2/23/2010 8:26 am |
Published: 2/22/2010 8:56 pm |
Some cities in Pulaski County want a bigger piece of the state pie for their fire departments. Each city and volunteer fire department got the same amount of money from a one time state funding disbursement last year. And large cities like Little Rock say it should have been based on population instead.
We're talking about a one time disbursement of nearly $180,000 as part of state Act 884. The intergovernmental council made of city and county leaders agreed to split the money evenly last summer. But Little Rock's mayor says that meeting conflicted with another big meeting and a lot of people didn't get to weigh in.
Oak Grove Fire Department covers 50 square miles with a volunteer staff. In Oak Grove they have to operate 3 fire stations with at least 4 trucks a piece and pay 5 employees all on a budget of about $236,000. That's a tough task.
The $7,000 they got from Act 884 helped pay for repairs to their rescue trucks. It's money they'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else.
Larry Whitaker with Oak Grove says the money helped all volunteer departments. He said, "Some departments were able to buy thermal imaging cameras, a lot of equipment they just wouldn't be able to buy without that money."
If the money had been distributed per capita instead of by department, they only would have gotten about $2,000. So which way should it work? That's what city mayors and Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines talked about Monday.
Mayor Mark Stodola said, "We have almost 200,000 people we have to protect and I don't know how many billions of dollars in property so every dollar helps in these challenging economic times."
Stodola says the 25 percent of that $180,000 that hasn't been doled out yet should be awarded on a per capita basis. And he wants the distribution of the other 75 percent rectified as well, asking the county to pay so that each department ends up with per capita amounts of money.
That concerns Villines. He said, "Those are funds we use for other things, jail, other things and you'd be setting a precedent."
The Intergovernmental Council will meet to vote on these proposals in the next month or two.
