During the November 19 County Commissioners, meeting, there was a discussion of proposed changes to fire fees. Interim County Administrator Douglas Eaves addressed the Board. “There’s been some court cases looking at the way fees are structured. The way our fees are structured, as a flat base fee, gets close to looking at it as a issue of taxation where it doesn’t meet the, pass the test, as a real fee. And there’s an issue since it would be a tax that would not be based on the value.”

Eaves stated there were two options going forward. “You could do a flat millage rate in the special service district to cover the cost necessary that’s not covered by the insurance premium fund. That would exempt, unfortunately, churches, schools and other government buildings that do receive fire protection.” He stated that it also unfairly impacted highly valued properties, even when they were similarly sized. He gave the example of a 2,000 square foot building in an affluent neighborhood verses one in a less ideal location that was not valued as highly. “The fire demands, to fight a fire on a 2,000 square foot structure, is going to be identical.”

Eaves gave the second method, which he recommended, which is used in the unincorporated areas of Chatham County and McDuffie County. “They charge a per square footage cost on the structures, on all structures, whether they be government, church, school, mobile home, whatever.”

Eaves stated location wouldn’t matter. “It’s just the contribution to the issue. There will be a lot charge. And then we would also have a land charge.”

He stated that the amount that land was charged would be dependent on its contribution to the problem. “Land would have much less charge on the acreage charge, of the total percentage that’s going to be charged, as opposed to residences and commercial buildings.” He stated the later were more likely to have fires. He also stated there was a multiplier for title 25 parcels based on risk factors.

Eaves concluded; “this way, we’ll pass the three tests that’s required of a fee. It has to be for a specific surface, it has to be applied based on the user contribution to the problem, and finally, the payers should receive some direct benefit for which they are paying.”

Commissioner Jim Reid replied. “At first glance, this is disproportionately unfair to landowners. You’re going to charge $3.12 a bare acre? Now as I understand it, we have the Georgia Forestry Commission for our wildfires and any other fires on our property. So as I understand it, the fire truck’s not going to enter on my property if there was a cotton picker or a tractor on fire.”

Eaves replied; “There’s a minimum of one acre and a cap of 75 acres.”

Reid replied; “75 acres is $232. A guy with 3500 square foot house [is] only going to pay 175.” He stated that agriculture and timber owners would pay a disproportionate amount of the fire fee despite paying taxes to support the Georgia Forestry Commission.

Hooks commented; “maybe another way to do this is to calculate it based on road frontage, since the County does have the obligation to put the fire out, am I correct, in the ditch adjacent to the county roads?” Hooks did state that this alternate method had the issue of burdening landowners with disproportionately large road frontage. Baldwin recommended further work on the issue.