Warren County Fiscal Court voted 4-2 Monday to extend the affiliation agreement between the Warren County Rescue Department and the county until Feb. 19 after Magistrate Mark Young asked for additional time to review a proposed agreement drafted by Warren County Emergency Management Director Ronnie Pearson.

During the same meeting, magistrates voted unanimously to approve an affiliation agreement with the Warren County Technical Rescue Team, which is a new organization made up of volunteer firefighters from the county’s nine volunteer fire departments that will collectively perform water rescue services and basic search and rescue in their fire districts.

This is the second time this year that magistrates have voted to extend the affiliation agreement with the Warren County Rescue Department. On Jan. 8, they voted to extend the agreement for 30 days. Without an agreement in place, the rescue department cannot perform any emergency services in Warren County. Magistrates Darrell Traughber and Doug Gorman voted against the extension Monday.

Rescue department board chairwoman Deborah Williams told fiscal court that her organization is willing to comply with regulations. She also addressed concerns about the solicitation tactics used by an outside agency hired to collect donations for the rescue department. She said she couldn’t find anyone upset with the way donations are collected by that agency, which receives 60 percent of the donations with the rescue department receiving 40 percent.

Alvaton Volunteer Fire Chief Brad Harper described the collection tactics as “pushy” and said he has received complaints. Williams countered that the rescue department receives a substantial amount of funding, an average of $100,000 a year, from the group that solicits donations for the rescue department.

“As we have discussed several times, our team is strongly committed to the services that we can provide to the citizens of Warren County,” Williams wrote in a letter to magistrates. “In our most tumultuous times, we have always been available to assist any and all agencies in the area and region.”

The rescue department hired local attorney David Broderick to represent the department’s interests in negotiations with the county. 

The rescue department is an independent charitable organization that provides ground search and rescue, recovery efforts and water rescues. However, under state law, in order to provide emergency services, the department must have an affiliation agreement in place with the local jurisdiction in which the department provides those services – in this case, fiscal court.

Last month, the county and the rescue squad wanted time for both parties to discuss the agreement. 

At a fire chiefs meeting in December, chiefs of all of the county volunteer fire departments agreed to take on the water rescues in Warren County, Pearson said. Since that time, 100 volunteer firefighters from all nine of the county’s volunteer fire departments have taken a swift water awareness course in preparation for taking over the water rescues efforts in Warren County, Pearson said in fiscal court. 

The rescue department, if an affiliation agreement is signed Feb. 19, will be called to the same incidents as the new technical rescue team to assist in a faster, more efficient response, Pearson said after the fiscal court meeting.

If an affiliation agreement is not signed with the rescue department, fiscal court could open up an additional unit to perform the same functions of the current rescue department or could ask the county’s fire chiefs or technical rescue team to expand their mission statements to include those functions.

In the proposed affiliation agreement, the rescue department’s water rescue equipment acquired through fiscal court would be strategically placed at the volunteer fire departments that have bodies of water within their districts to make that equipment closer to the sites where county statistics show there have been water response calls in the past. The equipment is currently stored in a county-owned building on Lewis Avenue.

The agreement also calls for the rescue department to maintain a set of bylaws that are reviewed on an annual basis and submitted to the Warren County Emergency Management Office and the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management; develop and maintain standard operating procedures reviewed by the county emergency management; develop a training program that uses nationally recognized standards for all operations of the rescue department and uses credentialed instructors for that training; adopt the Warren County administrative policy; meet all requirements for the special purpose governmental entity reporting in the required timeframe; and immediately terminate any and all fundraising on behalf of the rescue department when there are documented complaints about solicitors.

“I would like to see the volunteer fire departments take over all rescue operations,” Traughber said after the meeting. “I’m also really upset with the fact that they pressure people to donate. I don’t think people would give their hard-earned money if they knew only 40 percent is going to the rescue department.”

— Follow Assistant City Editor Deborah Highland on Twitter at twitter.com/BGDNCrimebeat or visit bgdailynews.com.