York County put fire service funding for Lake Wylie in writing. Then, into practice.

They hadn’t stood up from the table yet after finalizing the new Bethel Volunteer Fire Department spending setup, when they got a chance to put it into action.

York County Council ended more than a year of uncertainty March 20 when the group finalized an ordinance giving county administration operational control of fire tax funds in Lake Wylie. The ordinance formally dissolves a five-member citizen board performing the same function since the fire tax started in 2009.

It authorizes county staff to make personnel decisions and “safeguard the collection and distribution of all funds” impacting Bethel fire service, regardless of funding source.

Then, seven agenda items later, came a grass truck.

Council approved up to $125,000 for a grass truck, used primarily on brush fires, but also good for other operations, from an Alabama company. A somewhat typical move, but still one to test out the new setup.

“Is there a reason to anchor the title for this truck to the Bethel Fire Tax District, or are we ensured that it will only be used for the Bethel Fire Tax District?” asked Councilwoman Allison Love, who represents Lake Wylie.

Michael Kendree, county attorney, said county control of the district would impact the paperwork on the new truck.

“You have an agency of the county now operating the district,” he said. “It’s an asset being acquired through the expenditure of tax dollars, so you have a policy recommendation that it be titled in the name of the county.”

But, Kendree said, the wording of the grass truck item on the agenda should suffice.

“The purpose of the acquisition is for the benefit of the (Bethel) department,” he said. “It’s specified in the agenda item, so I don’t believe there could be any other use for the dedicated asset until such time as Council made a contradictory change.”

Initially the department asked for a third grass truck the county felt “probably wasn’t needed,” said Bill Shanahan, county manager. But in speaking with firefighters and looking deeper into the request, he came to a different conclusion.

“It’s basically a multi-purpose truck that can be used as a grass truck,” Shanahan said. “So they can go out and they can get to places where the fire trucks can’t get, they can put things out other than just grass fires.”

The change to county control follows more than a year of consternation in Lake Wylie. The former fire tax board wanted to create a more professional-style unit to keep up with a rapidly growing community. They voted to hire a paid chief who would have taken over had the county not passed an emergency ordinance earlier this year to start the process of dissolving the board.

Volunteers argued against the paid chief and told county leaders the tax board was overstepping its role of simply overseeing spending. They largely didn’t want the paid chief and asked county leaders to tell them who had operational control. If it wasn’t them anymore, they argued, they wouldn’t be responsible for community fire protection.

The decision to dissolve the fire tax board for Bethel didn’t impact other, similar fire tax boards throughout the county. Yet the county is taking a broader look at fire protection as a whole. They have a consultant looking to master plan fire needs and service options. Between the two Bethel votes March 20, Council voted to transfer more than $1 million for construction of a county fire training center.

Council deferred a decision creating two firefighter positions and salary ranges for them.

“We have a 10-year plan that we need to abide by,” Councilwoman Christi Cox said of the ongoing consultant work, “and that’s what we said we were going to do before we take any action.”

Salary ranges, in particular, are something the consultant can help with as the county moves forward.

“There’s also potential danger of us setting salary ranges for something when we’ve not come up with a 10-year plan,” Cox said

Shanahan said creating the county positions also is something he wants communicated well countywide, so he was fine deferring the decision for now.

“There’s been a lot of questions by firefighters, volunteers, and I would definitely like before we do anything else to meet with them and make sure they understand what this is about, why it’s being done,” he said. “I want to keep the trust.”

While the decision on the Bethel fire tax board didn’t directly impact others like it, the county is looking overall at tax board setups. Councilman Michael Johnson said a subcommittee he leads is looking at conflict of interest issues overall, and on fire boards in particular.

“Our committee felt fairly strongly that a majority of the people serving currently on some of these tax boards have conflicts that we would like to see better spelled out,” Johnson said.

Current firefighters on a fire tax board is one concern.

“Our committee felt it would be a conflict, and that we should remove those people,” Johnson said. “The problem is, we started looking through these (boards) and that’s probably going to be about 70 percent of our board members.”

This story was originally published March 23, 2017 at 7:39 PM with the headline "York County put fire service funding for Lake Wylie in writing. Then, into practice.."