STARKVILLE — The city hopes to use federal grant money to reopen Fire Station 5 on West Garrard Road, but officials warned Tuesday even that could prove costly to city taxpayers long-term.
Aldermen approved allowing Fire Chief Charles Yarbrough to apply for a Federal Emergency Management Agency SAFER grant to fund the nine firefighters needed to staff that station over the next three years.
If awarded, the grant would cover hiring salaries and benefits for the firefighters through Fiscal Year 2027, Yarbrough said. The city would be on the hook for costs like training, equipment, unscheduled overtime and incremental promotions, which Yarbrough estimated at roughly $370,000 combined over that span.
In the fourth year, the city would have no obligation to keep the firefighters. If it kept them, Yarbrough estimated it would cost the city $774,377.
“Either we do this, or the city will have to come up with a plan to fund it some other way,” Yarbrough told The Dispatch after Tuesday’s board meeting in City Hall.
The city built Fire Station 5 in 2010 using grant funds, but it has only been staffed partially and sporadically. It shuttered in 2022 because the city couldn’t hire the staff to run it.
Yarbrough said nine firefighters would allow the fire department to have three shifts there daily and be open 24 hours. If the city gets the grant, funds would come in September, and his department would have six months from the award date to hire those firefighters.
One problem: the department is already short four firefighters, and low starting salaries have proved challenging for filling even those positions, he said.
“We could do it,” Yarbrough told The Dispatch. “We’d just have to do some recruiting.”
One tool, he said, would be targeting college students. The department now has three on staff.
Not only would reopening the fire station help keep the city’s Mississippi State Rating Bureau rating, which affects property insurance rates, at Class 3 – one of the best in the state – it would also improve call response times and make the city “safer,” Yarbrough said.
Yarbrough found aldermen openly friendly to his cause, including Ward 1 Alderwoman Kim Moreland, Ward 5’s Hamp Beatty and Ward 7’s Henry Vaughn.
“Starkville is one of the fastest-growing towns in the state, and we need this fire service,” Vaughn said. “It’s time for us to man this station. We’ve been playing with it for all these years. … It’s time for us to really be serious about this.”
Though the vote to apply for the grant was unanimous, Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins, who represents Ward 6, pointed out accepting the money could come with consequences. The ask comes in the middle of a budget year, he noted, and the city is expecting to shoulder increased costs for the Public Employees Retirement System, among other rising operating costs.
“You can mark the calendar … come September 2024 (when the budget is approved for next fiscal year) if this grant gets approved, we’re going to have to have a millage increase,” Perkins said. “You can take that to the house.”
Ward 2 Alderwoman Sandra Sistrunk, who is the board’s budget chair, said the city expects to take on $500,000 or more in additional PERS costs over the next three years. She doesn’t know if the grant will ensure Fire Station 5’s long-term survival, but applying is “certainly more prudent than having to pay for it out of pocket.”
Mayor Lynn Spruill said the city should “look at all options” for the fire station, including contracting with other emergency services, like an ambulance service, to use it. More than 80% of fire department responses are for medical emergencies, she said.
“I don’t think our safety is compromised,” she said of the city’s fire coverage. “… Our response time is excellent.”
If money came available, Spruill said, there may be better ways to boost the fire department.
“If I get a choice between raises for the fire department or reopening Fire Station, I’m probably taking the raises,” she said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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