Lowndes County Volunteer Fire Services will receive 12 additional radios and pagers it requested for its new volunteer firefighters, the board of supervisors decided during its Monday meeting.
The department’s handling of the request, however, sparked a lengthy debate among supervisors during the meeting, which eventually led them to vote to establish a chain of command for firefighters requesting equipment purchases.
Supervisors on Monday approved to amend the Fiscal Year 2020 budget to include an extra $41,203 to pay for the additional equipment. The new radio model would each cost about $1,000 less than the ones the county ordered for all 114 volunteer firefighters late last year, said County Administrator Ralph Billingsley.
The department presented before the board in October an estimated $919,000 to buy Motorola communication devices for rural firefighters and chiefs, including radios and pagers for up to 136 volunteer firefighters, Billingsley told The Dispatch. The board decided to purchase the equipment up to that amount, he said.
But the 136 number was based on a false headcount that double counted some firefighters who live in one district but worked in another, Billingsley said. The actual number of volunteer firefighters, he said, was 114, which brought the estimated cost down to $780,000. The board approved the actual cost in a Nov. 4 meeting, Billingsley said, and the county entered a three-year agreement to pay the $780,000 in separate installments, with the first payment billed in November 2020.
District 3 Supervisor John Holliman said the fire department made the request because it needed to upgrade the devices to allow rural communication between firefighters and chiefs. The old radios could not receive signals in certain parts of the county, he said.
“(The volunteers) took it upon themselves to try these different radios out to see which ones would communicate better in these dead spots,” Holliman said.
In addition to the 114 sets of devices, which will be paid through the three-year agreement, the 12 additional radios and pagers will be purchased for $41,203 out of this year’s general operations fund.
District 3 volunteer fire chief Wayne Doyle reached out to his supervisor, Holliman, for additional equipment, and Holliman said he pointed Doyle to County Fire Coordinator Neil Austin and Emergency Services Director Cindy Lawrence to order what he needed instead of submitting the request for their consideration.
Billingsley rejected the order because the amount was not in the budget.
Both Doyle and Austin declined to comment on what happened during their exchange. Lawrence said she would leave it to Austin to answer the questions.
But Holliman said he thinks the original agreement stands, and it allows room for more devices.
“We had agreed to pay for anything up to that 136,” he said. “Ralph really didn’t have to do that. …When we approved it, it was budgeted.”
But the money was not included in this year’s budget, Billingsley said, and the county needed to amend the budget to make room for it.
“I cannot spend money that’s unbudgeted,” he said.
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said the handling of the situation did not follow the county’s procedure. The standard process, he said, should be for the fire department to submit the request to the county staff, who would then make their own recommendation to the board — rather than a fire chief starting the process by going directly to a supervisor.
Brooks also said he does not understand why the county approved to buy more expensive equipment in the first place when there is now a cheaper alternative.
Billingsley said the price estimates were given by one of the volunteer firefighters.
“Neil is the fire coordinator and it’s his responsibility (to research the price),” he said.
Austin said the county staff formed a committee with several volunteers to discuss the purchase. The price estimates, he said, were presented to the committee by one of the volunteers who received the quote from the same company, Jackson Communications, which gave the quotes for the 114 sets of equipment to the county.
His role, Austin said, was to assist the volunteers to get quotes for the equipment.
“I try to help out the volunteers with that, because I’m a county employee and they are not,” Austin said. “Pretty much I’ll leave that to the volunteers … (but) the quote dictates who we go with.”
But Brooks disagreed with that process. That prompted supervisors to task Billingsley with creating a written protocol for firefighter purchase requests.
“(The volunteers) don’t run this county,” Brooks said. “They should not be going out and getting quotes and doing stuff, they should go for Neil and Cindy.”
Brooks said he hopes to develop procedures written on paper to address the confusion, which won the board’s unanimous approval.
“I don’t think we have a specific policy, but they know what the rules are,” Brooks said. “We’re just gonna put it in writing so there won’t be any misunderstanding.”
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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