Full-time fire chief post
could settle lawsuit
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| Lexington City Council and the city's fire department are on the verge of settling a lawsuit over a $199,000 donation. (JASON BACAJ/The Rockbridge Report) |
The hiring of a new fire chief may resolve a seven-month dispute that prompted a lawsuit over a $199,000 donation that the Lexington Fire Department says belongs to it and not to the city.
The pending solution would put to rest questions of how much control city officials have over the volunteer fire department’s finances, City Manager Jon Ellestad said. The department would officially become part of the city, he said.
Fire Chief David Clark expressed relief over the prospect of an out-of-court settlement.
“A lot of guys are burned out on this,” Clark said. “Quite honestly, I am too.”
Squabbles over who controls the fire department’s money began after city resident Dorothy Osburg died in 2006, leaving the volunteer fire department a portion of her $2.8 million estate.
According to the lawsuit filed in federal court by the department last July, accountant Greg Raetz of Raetz & Hawkins, who was co-executor of Osburg’s estate, turned the $199,000 donation over to the city, which then declined to pass it on to the fire department.
Last week, the city manager told Clark and Ronnie Williams, the department’s chief engineer, of the city’s plan to hire a full-time fire chief, something the department had previously requested.
Clark said he believes the new position is what the department needs, both to end the dispute and to relieve volunteer firefighters of the bulky paperwork that comes with running a fire department.
That includes organizing a monthly report to the city, sending incident reports to insurance companies and submitting bills to the city every other week. The city sets the fire department’s annual budget, he said.
“It’s a full- time job on top of my full- time job,” said Clark, a service technician at Dixie Gas & Oil Corp. “The administrative stuff has to be done, and to be honest, this chief job is just not fun anymore.”
While hiring a full-time fire chief may end the lawsuit, the city would have to assume the fire department’s growing debt, Ellestad said. The city treasurer and finance department would handle the fire department’s books, he said.
The fire department has exceeded its budget for the past four years, which Clark attributed in part to having financial records kept by members of an all-volunteer department.
The debt increased after the department spent $81,000 updating the software in its trucks and buying a new pickup truck to replace an old engine and two other vehicles. The fire department anticipated that the Osburg money, which would have nearly doubled its $273,000 annual budget, would pay for the purchases.
City Council last week approved the purchase of the $46,000 software system, which contains maps of all the streets and roads in the county with fire hydrant locations. But that still leaves the department with debt from the truck, which was bought with a loan, and earlier budget overruns.
Ellestad said hiring a new fire chief would cost the city about $80,000, including benefits.
A joint committee, made up of Ellestad, Council members Frank Friedman and Jim Gianniny, Clark and Williams, will work out the details of selecting a full-time fire chief. Ellestad said the committee plans to meet by next week at the latest.
Clark said he wants a new chief hired from outside of Virginia, adding that he hoped the candidate would be approved by a majority vote of about 25 volunteer firefighters.
“I admire whoever’s going to attempt it,” he said, “It’s certainly not going to be easy.”
Produced by
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