The chief of the Lake Ridge Volunteer Fire Department is frustrated that its budget is less than the protective district’s emergency medical services.
But, the chairman of the department’s overseeing board says comparing the two is like “apples and oranges.”
At the Lake County Council’s budget reading Tuesday, Fire Chief Marvin Pyle expressed concerns with the department’s low budget compared to the one for EMS and ambulance services within the Lake Ridge Fire Protection District. Pyle said the fire department’s budget is about $250,000 and the ambulance is about $700,000.
“Every year, when we ask for an increase for our fire department budget, our fire protection board is constantly telling us that the county doesn’t have the money to increase our budget,” Pyle said. “But yet, ever since we started this ambulance service, which the district runs, the budget increases by $100,000 a year for the EMS side.”
The district created its EMS in 2023, Pyle said, and he was told they’d be given $150,000 by the county. In the following years, the budget for EMS continued to increase, he added.
Lake Ridge’s EMS runs out of the same building as the fire department, Pyle said.
“I’m getting frustrated with it,” Pyle said, “because it seems like the protection board is only here for the ambulance service, and they can’t give two craps about the fire department any more.”
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Trista Hudson, municipal advisor for Cender Dalton, helps prepare the fire district’s budget each year. The district receives several forms of revenue, including property taxes from homeowners in the district, which is mostly Calumet Township. Tax dollars come in and are spent providing the fire service, which Hudson said was “barely covering” what was needed when the ambulance was created in 2023.
Tim Kuiper, chairman of the board of the Lake Ridge Fire Protection District, was adamant that the tax dollars continue to provide fire service and new revenues would cover the ambulance service, Hudson said. Revenues include income tax money that the county can assign to different communities.
“They had assigned initially, because it started at the very end of a year, $150,000,” Hudson said. “Then when it was annual, they contributed $400,000 to the ambulance operations.”
The ambulance service tries to bring in its own revenue by making sure medical billing is handled well and insurance companies are paying for the provided ambulance services, Hudson said.
“As we prepare the budget each year, we have very specifically kept the tax separate for the fire and the revenues from the county and billing separate for the ambulance service,” she said. “Of course, the revenues coming in will never be penny-for-penny equal because they’re coming from different sources for different reasons. And the expenses also will never be identical because different services are being provided in different fashions.”
The volunteer fire department is also contracted to the district, Hudson said, and the contract helps handle some operational expenses. The contract also helps pay volunteer officers who respond to calls, smaller repairs or oil changes on vehicles, Hudson said.
On the ambulance side, EMS workers are on a part-time model, Kuiper said, which means that they’re available 24/7 but are paid as part-time employees. He said there’s about 15 EMS workers.
“There’s no benefits, none of that,” he said. “The issue that you have come up with a part-time model is that folks will come from other jobs to help us out, and there are certain times where we may not have enough people to cover a shift.”
Kuiper has decided to switch to a full-time model, which he said will take a hit to the ambulance budget because employees will receive benefits.
Kuiper said the district has a budget committee that meets with the fire department for its budget every year. This year, he said, the fire department asked for an $100,000 increase to their budget. The board had “a severe problem” with the increase, which he said is equal to more than 25% of the department’s budget.
“Where’s the justification?” Kuiper said. “Are my citizens going to get a 25% increase in services? Are there better response times, better training?”
Budget issues have created animosity between the fire department and EMS, Pyle said, especially because ambulance crews are at the building “24 hours a day, seven days a week,” but the utilities and building payments come out of the fire department budget.
Hudson said utilities for the building are handled by the district, and there’s a loan for the building because it’s newer.
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The Lake Ridge fire department is made up of volunteers, Pyle said, so they’re not at the building as much.
Pyle is concerned about the future of the fire department, he said, especially as they need to replace equipment without much room to afford it in their budget.
“I never have a budget to even think about trying to replace a piece of apparatus,” Pyle said. “That’s the one thing that’s really upsetting to me, and it’s getting aggravating. I’m tired of seeing the district’s budget increasing and getting told that they can’t afford to give us any more money.”