Frequently Asked Questions:
- Why are the funds being requested?
- The funds are requested to continue to support the mission of the fire and rescue department. The entire county has seen an upward trend in the number of calls for service we are called to, the additional construction projects, and service demands from the community. We are an advanced life support agency, which affords us the ability to provide a very high-level of medical care, when a sudden medical or traumatic incident happens, but staffing our stations with the necessary equipment and professionals comes with service costs and competitive wages & benefits. Additionally with an increase in call volume, and state-required training levels, comes more demand on our personnel/staffing, equipment and fleet.
- What services are you providing for the funding? What impact will I see as a taxpayer?
- We will continue to provide the services we have been providing except we are looking to expand our fire and EMS staffing model from three shifts of 3 firefighters/medical providers to three shifts of 4. This will provide for a more efficient service and allow us to handle overlapping calls. This year we have 10% of our calls overlapping each other. Calls overlap each other when we have multiple calls coming in while we are on another call. That could be during a storm, while on an extended scene, when two medical calls come, and/or our ambulance may be returning from the hospital, in Traverse City, after a transport. When these overlapping calls occur, we may have insufficient staffing left in town to handle them both, so we are forced to call our neighbors in to cover us.
- We will continue to be able to attract a quality workforce with our competitive wages scales we now offer our full-time firefighter/emergency medical providers. During a review of comparison departments, we ranked low but thanks to a fair wage and benefit package we can not only attract quality caring, compassionate, competent, and confident candidates but the ones we have want to stay. In a recent hiring advertisement, the full-time firefighters lauded about their excellent working relationship with the fire chief and the township board. They love the community they serve.
- The Leland Township Fire & Rescue will waive any out-of-pocket balances for emergency room transports, for Leland Township residents, not covered by their insurance provider.
- Are there specific projects, hiring or purchases that the proposed funding would be used for?
- There are several projects, staffing, and purchase models occurring in the near future. In the equipment and training side, that millage will help us restructure our fleet. The apparatus we purchased 15 to 20 years ago may no longer serve our needs – the science of fighting fire or providing medical and rescue care has significantly changed over the years – and so has the technology and best practices. Our staff stays on top of those changes, and we talk about our needs and service delivery model frequently. Thanks to the public support of our community, we have been able to keep up with those recommendations and have fire trucks and ambulances built to our needs. Buying a fire truck or ambulance isn’t as simple as going down to the local car dealership and walking out a few hours later with a shiny, new car. They are usually built for the terrain we cover, the access roads we have, the firefighting capability we need, and equipment we need it to carry. We are a rural fire department, so we have to bring the water with us to a fire. I am proud to say because of the support of the residents and township board we are projected to receive a new ambulance and a tanker, a truck that hauls 3,000 gallons of water and is also equipped with environmentally safe foam, in 2026. The ambulance will replace a 2012 chassis equipped with a patient compartment built in the early 2000s. The tanker will replace two tankers that have insufficient firefighting pump capabilities. Those trucks hauled the water but could not be really used to fight the fire with- the new truck will meet our needs much more. In 2018, when I first got here, the department created an apparatus replacement plan and, although we fine tune it every year, it keeps us moving forward. The board has set a vision to have our full-time emergency medical technicians (EMTs) become paramedics to help meet the projected needs and growth of the community. The ability to pay for and support that training mission, including recruiting and retaining employees, comes from this millage. This millage also affords us to send our staff to some incredible training and educational opportunities to keep us sharp and educated.
- On the operating millage side, which incorporates our day-to-day happenings of our department including payroll, insurance, and other benefits, our big project coming up is to continue to expand our operations at the Leland Fire Station. When I arrived in 2017, we only staffed the fire station in Lake Leelanau 24/7. The community demanded we look at staffing the Leland fire station as well. We originally started with a summer, peak-time staffing incorporating our part-time and paid-on-call staff. As the years grew and through the support of the community, we started staffing it more and more – now we have a staffing model of three shifts of 3. Two in Lake Leelanau and one in Leland. The data, and the thank you cards! prove that this model is getting us on scenes, putting medical care on scene or water on the fire significantly. As great as that has been when one crew is tied up, say on a transport to Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, that leaves one person back in the township. There are times that one person can get the ball rolling, but they can’t fight fire safely when they are alone. Additionally, if that one medical professional shows up, they can only do so much. It is impossible for one person to perform CPR, breathe for a patient, and do other skills and assessments alone. It is also impossible, in the less dramatic cases, to have one person take care of a patient in the back of the ambulance and also drive them to the hospital. This millage request calls for the funding to add an additional full-time staff member to each of the three shifts so that, on a perfect day, we will have two firefighters/medical providers in Lake Leelanau and two firefighter/medical providers in Leland. We will work with the full-time union members, through the collective agreement processes, to increase our minimum number of people on duty from two to three. They are very open to those discussions – they love being here to serve the community. It also calls for the addition of a few part-time positions. The number of people wanting to “volunteer” or be available for a significant incident has dwindled in the recent years. Not only in Leland Township but in northern Michigan, in the state, and across the nation. We have shifted gears to a more traditional pay and benefits type of department to keep pace with our neighbors. Our most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement keeps our duty crew members, the ones who respond at all hours of the day and night from the staffed fire stations, comparable, with wages and benefits, of those in the neighboring communities. This will allow us to keep ourselves competitive when it comes to recruiting and retaining employees.
- What kind of equipment and training is covered with the Equipment and Training budget?
- Repairs and Maintenance of the fleet including oil changes, batteries, tires/tire rotations, and annual maintenance & inspections.
- Education and training so paramedic classes, fire academy, fire officer classes, continuing education for fire and EMS employees, and conferences
- New Equipment (cars, trucks, ORV/ATVs)
- Outdoor Weather Sirens (maintenance)
- Firefighter Personal Protective Equipment (turnout gear ensembles and wildfire gear)
- Cleaning and Repair of turnout gear (heavy soil or damage from firefighting duties )
- Radio (portable and mobile) purchase, maintenance, lease, and county/state 800MHz fees
- EMS and Fire Equipment – firefighter boots, saws, axes, trauma kits, mass casualty supplies, dump tanks for the tanker, rope rescue equipment, hoses, adapters, wildfire equipment, etc.
- Training Equipment and Supplies (CPR manikins, medical manikins, firefighting props, lightbulbs for the training room projector, etc.
- Self-contained breathing apparatus
- Traffic Reflective Gear
- Office furniture & IT equipment needs.
- How will the proposal serve the community? Does it address a current need?
- As outlined above, these two proposals, one being for equipment & training and the other being operating, allows us to do what we love to do…keep the community safe and stay ready to respond with the appropriate apparatus type, and with a reasonable number of people staffing the station, if the community needs us. It allows us to continue our fire prevention, medical education, and risk reduction efforts.
- Is there anything else you would like to add or comment on?
- Our core values are “caring, compassionate, competent, and confident”. Those aren’t just cute words – it drives our focus on every call. When the community calls, they should expect our crews to have these values instilled in them. Our newest ambulance also has the slogan “community supported, community driven” we know this, we live this. We know without the community support we wouldn’t be here. We would not have staffed stations, we would not have nice equipment or apparatus, and we would not be able to do the job we enjoy. We recognize the community loves the Leland Township Fire & Rescue, we do not take that for granted, we are driven to provide an excellent service to them. We always appreciate that our community shows up at the polls and supports our millages. We treasure that trust and the love the community has in us.
- Our needs/allocations change year to year – so next year we may buy SCBAs (breathing air packs) or radios, next year we might have several new hires, so we need to buy turnout gear, because it is usually custom fit, but not any SCBA. we may need to replace CPR manikins in two years but not again for five years… it’s all fluid.
- What years will the proposed millage capture funds for the fire & rescue department?
- The millage will be captured in 2025, 2026, and 2027 providing funding for the 2026-27, 2027-28, and 2028-29 fiscal years. Our fiscal year starts April 1 and runs through March 31st of the next year.
Dan Besson
Fire Chief
Leland Township Fire & Rescue