Fayette County Commission assures fire departments they’ll still get funding amid cuts

FAYETTE COUNTY, W.Va. –The Fayette County Commission will take over all budgeting for their fire departments after they recently voted to reduce the public safety levy.

The commission met Wednesday afternoon to discuss the fire departments budget and assure them that they would still be getting funding, it would just look a little different. This comes after they voted to reduce the public safety levy by 48 percent, which will heavily impact the 15 fire departments in the county.

Commissioner Allison Taylor says that, while the commission is reducing the levy, they will make sure that they are budgeting for whatever the fire stations need.

“And now that budgeting is just going to be done by the commission, and as long as you guys are telling us to what your needs are, we’re going to budget for that,” Taylor said during their meeting.

The reason the fire levy will be hit the hardest is because it currently has the most funds, with a balance of $5,485,462.57 dollars.

Some fire departments concern with the commission voting to reduce the levy, was because they didn’t know the exact reason. Some said that the state’s auditor’s office were the ones to tell the commission to reduce the levy.

Taylor said that this wasn’t true.

“It was more that the auditor just said look, the fire levy isn’t meant to be a savings account, levy’s not just fire levy, our fire levy just happened to have the most amount of money in it so it drew the comment, but they didn’t by any means tell us what else to do about that or anything else,” she said.

The levy currently helps with the purchase of equipment, fire apparatus, and other material.

Also at the meeting, pertaining to the levy and fire departments wanting to by new trucks for this levy cycle, commissioner Greg Fernett said that if a municipality tied to the fire department and contributes to the department then if that department buys a truck, it automatically belongs to the municipality. And if the fire department decides to sell said truck that money would go back to the municipality.

Fernett said that it would be different for those departments that don’t have ties to a municipality.

“The truck was bought with levy money, it is now going to be sold because it’s no longer in use, because we’re replacing it, the money will be returned to the levy,” he said.