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The topic of funding Coffee County’s five rural volunteer fire departments was discussed during the Oct. 30 meeting of the Coffee County Health, Warfare and Recreation Committee.

Budget and Finance Committee Member Joey Hobbs said during the meeting that there have been errors in the way the funds had been distributed.

One issue addressed during the meeting were inconsistencies in the funding received by each department. A second issue involves $250,000 per year in incentive funds promised by the County Commission three years ago but omitted from the county’s 2023-2024 budget.

“I think we just need to redo (the funding formula) and send it to the floor (of the County Commission),” Hobbs said.

According to Hobbs, the county allocates $500,000 for rural fire. That pool of money is divided by department on a weighted formula that gives departments with better fire insurance ratings and more substation a bigger cut of the money.

Each station starts with a base allocation of $32,000. To that the county adds $5,000 per substation. Departments then get fire insurance rating credit based on their rating.

The total allocation for substation credit across the board is $370,000. That sum is subtracted from the total allocation of $500,000, leaving $130,000 to be divvied up as fire insurance credit. Hickerson gets 23.23% and the others get 19.19% of that $130,000.

According to the figures presented during the meeting, Hickerson should get $112,000, Summitville $117,000, North Coffee $77,000, and Hillsboro and New Union $97,000 each.

However those numbers were off in 2023, with Hickerson receiving $108,886, Summitville 118,986, North Coffee $74,556 and Hillsboro and New Union $98,886.The gap further widened with the 2024 Coffee County budget, with Hickerson coming in $4,000 over and North Coffee $10,000 short.

Hobbs suggested that as stations improve their ISO or more stations are added, the County Commission should raise the total allocation from $500,000 rather than undercut the funds from another station.

“I recommend we add to the (base allocation) and the rest of it works out based on how hard they work and how many stations they have,” Hobbs said. “That way you’re not getting into the weeds and up and down everybody.”

Commissioner Tim Morris, who is also a member of the County Health, Wellness and Recreation Committee, said the issue of the funding should not turn into a competition amongst the fire departments.

“If all of you guys are doing well, then we need to really pay attention to that and raise that money,” he said,

Budget and Finance approves formulas

The Budget and Finance Committee recommended a budget amendment at the Nov. 2 meeting that would fund the rural fires using the above numbers and also passed a recommendation to add the $250,000 incentive monies to the budget.

At that meeting, Coffee County Accounts and Budgets Director Marianna Edinger said that the differences were what were presented with the budget. She noted that the $250,000 was not brought up during the budget process.

According to the University of Tennessee advisory group (MTAS), “ISO uses a grading system from 1 to 10 with 1 being the best and 10 representing a community without an effective fire service.”

The rating is based in part on the fire flow available in the area and the average road distance the homes in that district are from a fire station. By and large, rural Coffee County has water infrastructure problems with many areas not having adequate fire flow.