Greenwood County agrees to float $6.2M to buy 12 new fire trucks

In an effort to modernize Greenwood’s aging fleet of fire trucks, the County Council on Tuesday to borrow more than $6 million for the purchase of 16 new vehicles.

The funds will be paid back by April 2022 through capital projects sales tax collections, but forces the county to take on debt — a prospect that didn’t sit well with council chairman Steve Brown.

“I’m not against fire service, but I have a real problem of going outside what we put to the voters. We didn’t go to them and tell them we were going to float $6 million worth of debt and buy 16 trucks at one time,” he said. “I never heard the need for 15 or 16 fire trucks when we were going through the process of setting up the referendum, and that would have been the time to bring it up.”

The master-lease purchase agreement with PNC Finance was approved 6-1, with Brown the only one against. Over the life of the plan, the county will pay $397,000 in interest, at a rate of 3.39 percent.

County Fire Coordinator Steve Holmes said 11 of the 16 vehicles will replace ones that average 29 years old and have a history of breaking down, creating safety concerns and swelling maintenance budgets.

Even with the new trucks in service, the county will have 22 vehicles with an average age of 18 years old.

“In 10 years, we’re going to have this exact same thing again, and what I’m trying to do is get us a base of trucks that will operate for a few years without maintenance costs killing us. I’m moving them all over the county to have trucks answering calls,” Holmes said.

Councilmembers offered an impassioned defense for Holmes’ request, acknowledging that the payment plan deviates from what was presented to voters in 2016.

“In the short time I’ve been on this council, I’ve come to believe that our fire service structure right now is somewhat of a pending disaster, and I am certainly as sensitive to anyone for breaking outside the initial intent of the capital project sales tax,” Lane said. “We have denied requests for us to deviate, but I don’t recall having a request to deviate that has been made from critical and essential services. And I’m frankly scared not to.”

Councilman Mark Allison agreed.

“I have watched hours of the coverage of the Hurricane Florence, and I can tell you that in 85 percent of the rescues I watched, it was a fire truck and a fireman pulling people out of the water,” he said. “This is the responsibility of government at its core.”

Holmes told the council that recently, a 1991 model truck that is in daily use had its dashboard fall out. After receiving a quote for $13,000 to replace it, he spent $450 to bend a piece of aluminum and bolt parts to it as a workaround.

“That’s literally what we’re facing every day,” Holmes said. “We’ve had them (firefighters) go into a station and get a truck that wouldn’t respond.”

Councilmembers Gonza Bryant and Robbie Templeton said they were troubled by the idea of rejecting Holmes’ emergency request, for fear of what it could mean to residents.

“I don’t want the fire trucks to stop on the way to my constituent’s house, and with those numbers, we’re going to have some problems,” Bryant said.

Originally Published by Index-Journal on:Sep 18, 2018

 By ADAM BENSON abenson@indexjournal.com

Article Link: https://www.indexjournal.com/news/greenwood-county-agrees-to-float-6-2m-to-buy-12-new-fire-trucks/article_e6db5e17-7cf1-5b5e-802d-5a57a2bed005.html