The Woodburn Volunteer Fire Department is seen Monday, as the wheels are in motion to eventually have around 20 part-time firefighters on duty during daytime hours throughout Warren County. (JACK DOBBS / Daily News)

Changes are on the way to Warren County’s volunteer fire departments, as plans are in store to increase the presence of fire personnel at stations during daytime hours, something County Fire Coordinator Bill Rector told the Daily News will, in concert with other changes, fill a gap in emergency services for county residents.

“I keep describing it as like a four pronged approach,” Rector said. “These four pillars, I would say, are personnel, infrastructure, apparatus and … training. We’re addressing all those, and all those take time, energy and resources.”

Reworking the volunteer fire departments has been a focus for county government for some time. Last year, the Warren Fiscal Court solicited a study of the county’s VFD’s from fire-consultants MissionCIT, a study that resulted in Rector’s hiring as fire coordinator.

MissionCIT focused on four key areas for its study — improving funding, improving service delivery, reducing system fragmentation and improving health, safety and wellness for fire personnel and the public.

Rector said to this end, there is a goal to have a continuous presence during daytime hours Monday through Friday throughout the county.

“ … There will be somewhere around 20 part-time firefighters covering the county at strategically located places,” Rector said. “That’s a big deal, because right now, our most recognized staffing challenge is during the day, (when) a lot of the volunteers have jobs elsewhere.”

Rector said the county will pull from a “pool of about 70 to 75 candidates” and will hire based off other commitments. He said part-time personnel will sign up based on availability. Weekends will remain fully volunteer-staffed, he said.

“The 20 number is a placeholder that we’re using, because some days we might have 25 some days we might have 16,” he said.

The ball is rolling to outfit these future staff upgrades. Magistrates on June 13 approved a slew of equipment purchases, including personal protective equipment like helmets and clothing, along with four defibrillators. New fire trucks are also being looked into, he said.

All of this comes at a cost. Rector said the three new tanker trucks recently acquired came to the tune of around $1.4 million. Ladder trucks run about $1.75 million. To better utilize taxpayer money, Rector said the county is looking at the used market and developing a 20-year apparatus plan to help judge future needs.

“What it means is a (fire) engine after the 20 year mark should be placed in the reserve status, a ladder truck after 25 years should be placed in reserve status,” he said. “There’s always caveats to that, but essentially, what it’s saying is we need to adequately prepare fiscal court for those expenses, rather than just doing it a bit haphazardly.”

To cover increased costs, magistrates approved in March of this year an ordinance that would place a license fee on insurance companies operating in the county. The fee could generate as much as $4.5 million per year in revenue.

Currently, all of the county’s volunteer departments get money through annual dues. For residential households the dues are $50, for businesses, $70. This provided over $1.3 million in funding for the nine VFDs in 2023, the Daily News reported previously.

Rector said while insurance fee conversations were happening this year there was talk of eventually “sunsetting” the dues structure, but he doesn’t believe that would be a prudent move just yet.

“The way the insurance premium fee works is that we will not know the projected income from that until a year after that fee is initiated,” he said, adding that the fee kicks in on July 1 this year.

A timeline for all of this is not yet known for sure. Rector said the hope is to have the part-time personnel structure start up in August. By January, the plan is to hire some operational personnel who will help the county build out the system.

“Come January, we will have a much better idea where we are financially, along with where we are with the part time folks and how that implementation process is working,” Rector said.