Colfax fire board approves $112,700 budget for 2023 and $94,700 property tax levy
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
Editor’s note: LeAnn R. Ralph serves as a supervisor on the Otter Creek Town Board, and in the absence of Mark Warner, chair of the Otter Creek Town Board, represented the township at the fire board meeting.
COLFAX — The Colfax Community Fire District Board has approved a budget of $112,700 for 2023 with a property tax levy of $94,700.
The 2023 budget and levy is essentially the same budget and levy the fire department has had for the last 10 years.
The 2023 line item budget amounts are the same as the 2022 budget, said Gary Hill, Colfax fire chief, at the Colfax Community Fire District Board’s October 13 meeting.
For the past 10 years, the Colfax fire department has had a surplus at the end of the budget year that the fire board has approved transferring to the vehicle replacement account.
As of September 30, the balance in the vehicle replacement account was $249,229.
Several members of the fire board asked how it could be possible that — with increased costs for everything over the past 10 years — the fire department budget and levy have remained the same.
Don Logslett, retired fire chief, said the number of runs per year has been decreasing, which means the department’s expenses have been decreasing.
And while he was fire chief, Logslett’s philosophy was that if there is a surplus at the end of the year, then there is no need to increase the budget.
According to a report Hill provided to the fire board, so far in 2022, the Colfax fire department has gone out on 18 runs.
At the October budget meeting in 2021, the total runs to date at that time was 28.
Total runs for 2020 was 19, while the total runs for 2019 was 29 and the total runs for 2018 was 22.
The Colfax Community Fire District includes the Village of Colfax and the Towns of Colfax, Grant and Otter Creek.
The Colfax Community Fire Department has 25 members on the roster, with six new members in the last one and a half years.
Fire runs
To date, the Colfax fire department has gone out on three runs in the Town of Grant (one each for a structure fire, a grass fire and a logging accident); six runs in the Town of Otter Creek (two each for structure fires, grass fires and car fires/accidents); eight runs in the Town of Colfax (four structure fires, one car fire/accident, one carbon monoxide alarm, and two power line incidents); and one run in the Village of Colfax (gas leak).
The Colfax fire department has received mutual aid two times from other fire departments and has provided mutual aid once each to Sioux Creek and Wheaton, two times each to Bloomer, Boyceville, Elk Mound and Ridgeland, and three times to the Menomonie fire department.
When fire board members commented that Colfax provided much more mutual aid than the department received, Hill pointed out that the other departments’ reports probably looked similar, with the other departments receiving mutual aid a few times and giving more mutual aid than they received to their neighboring fire departments.
So far in 2022, Colfax firefighters have attended 10 meetings for a total of 10 hours, have attended 18 training sessions for a total of 43 hours and have had special duties 16 times for a total of 24 hours.
The special duties include activities such as filling swimming pools or doing work around the fire station, Hill said.
Property tax levy
Municipalities in the Colfax fire district pay the property tax levy according to the percentage of equalized value in the district.
While the property tax levy will remain the same at $94,700, because the equalized value in each municipality changes from year to year, the property tax levy changes accordingly.
The Town of Colfax, for example, has an equalized value for 2022 of $119.46 million, compared to an equalized value for 2021 of $103.1 million.
The Town of Colfax’s property tax levy for the fire department, at 39.7 percent of the equalized value in the fire district, will be $37,608 for 2023, compared to $36,638 for 2022.
The Village of Colfax, with an equalized value for 2022 of $69.1 million, or 23 percent of the equalized value in the fire district, will have a property tax levy for 2023 of $21,759, compared to a property tax levy last year of $22,461, based on an equalized value of $63.2 million, or 23.7 percent of the equalized value in the district.
The Town of Grant, with an equalized value of $52.49 million, or 17.5 percent of the equalized value in the fire district, will have a property tax levy of $16,525, compared to last year’s levy of $17,327, based on an equalized value of $48.75 million, or 18.3 percent of the equalized value in the fire district.
The Town of Otter Creek, with an equalized value of $59.73 million, or 19.9 percent of the equalized value, will have a property tax levy of $18,805, compared to last year’s levy of $18,272, based on an equalized value of $51.4 million or 19.3 percent of the equalized value in the fire district.
Payroll
The Colfax fire board has approved increasing the wages for firefighters from $15 per hour to $16 per hour for 2023.
None of the firefighters are “in it for the money” and want to serve their community, Hill said.
On the other hand, if a firefighter has to leave his or her job to go out on a fire, and the employer docks that employee’s wages for being out on a fire, it would be nice to come a little closer to replacing their lost wages, he said.
If the fire run is at night, and the firefighters are up all night fighting a fire and then have to go to work in the morning, a bump in wages would show the firefighters that their efforts are appreciated, Hill said.
The Colfax fire board also approved increasing the salary for Jessica Checkalski, secretary/treasurer, from $2,400 per year to $2,700 per year.
Checkalski has been the secretary/treasurer for the fire district for six years and has not received any previous increases in salary.
The on-scene rates will remain the same with the exception of an increase for the delivery fee for filling swimming pools from $75 to $150 and $17 per hour for personnel, an increase of $1 per hour.
The Colfax fire department charges $75 per hour for Brush 1, Rescue 81, Tender 10, Tender 9, Brush Truck 3, Engine 6 and River Pump 2.
The rate for Engine 7 is $150 per hour, and the fire department charges $4.48 per 1,000 gallons of water.
The Colfax fire board also approved paying Christie Hill $500 for the period from October until next April for filing reports, billing for fire runs and filling out other paperwork to assist her husband, the fire chief.
Gary Hill pointed out that all of the reports must now be filed online and most official communication is conducted by e-mail.
Hill said that he is not as proficient with computers as he would like to be, and that while it would take him 15 or 20 minutes to compose and send an e-mail, Christie is much more efficient and can accomplish the task in a matter of minutes.
The Colfax fire board also approved paying Christie Hill $500 at the April 7 meeting after learning that Hill would be covered by the fire department’s insurance as a paid employee if there were ever an issue regarding a fire or a report on a fire.
Fire engine
The Colfax fire department’s main fire engine was purchased in 1993.
Determining specifications and ordering a new fire truck will take six months to a year, Hill said.
After a new fire truck is ordered, the approximate delivery time is two years, he said.
The cost of a new fire engine is $500,000 to $600,000, and Hill recommended that the fire department start working on determining the specifications for a new fire truck for Colfax.
After money has been applied to the cost of a new fire engine from the fire district’s vehicle replacement account, the municipalities in the fire district will be responsible for the remainder of the cost according to their percentage of equalized value in the fire district.
Mark Dietsche, representative for the Town of Grant and chair of the fire board, said he would prefer that not all of the money in the vehicle replacement account be spent on the new fire engine so that money would remain if another piece of equipment needed to be repaired or replaced.
Representatives on the Colfax Community Fire District Board agreed that Hill should start determining specifications for a new fire engine and bring information back to the fire board at the April of 2023 meeting about the fire engines that are available from various manufacturers.
Other business
In other business, the Colfax Community Fire District Board:
• Appointed Kyle Repaal as assistant fire chief based on the election of Repaal as the assistant fire chief by the Colfax firefighters.
• Approved Dietsche as chair of the fire board until the April of 2023 election. Chair of the fire board has rotated among the representatives on the fire board. Fire board members agreed that it was Mark Warner’s turn, as chair of the Town of Otter Creek, to serve as chair of the fire board. Warner was absent from the meeting and has said that he does not intend to run again for town chair.
