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March 29, 2024 8:41 am
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MV Fire District Board Discusses Separation From County Control

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

Local leaders of the Moapa Valley Fire District (MVFD) have begun a discussion on the possibility of separating from the supervision of Clark County Fire Department and operating as an independent district under the Nevada Revised Statutes. The MVFD advisory board, made up of the chiefs from the three local stations and a representative from each of the two town advisory boards, met on Monday, Nov. 13 and discussed the separation.

Also in attendance at the meeting were executives from Clark County Fire Department including Chief Greg Cassell, Assistant Chief Larry Haydu, department financial analyst Ed Zagalo and others. Clark County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick was also present.
“I am prepared to let you go out on your own,” Kirkpatrick told the MVFD advisory board in the meeting. “But if you do that, please think out all of the unexpected consequences and plan for them. Because I can’t get you back that fast. There is a balanced way that you can start. Everything has to start small and move in the direction that you want to go.”

Kirkpatrick said that she had instigated the discussion of the separation because of the apparent adverse relationship between the local volunteer stations and the Clark County Fire Department staff.
“I’m the one that started this,” Kirkpatrick said. “The county (fire department) is saying that we are tired of fighting with you all. So I said if you want to be on your own, then let’s go ahead and do that. That’s the truth. I gave them that direction. We can’t keep fighting with you. At the end of the day, we have to focus on public safety.”

The Moapa Valley Fire District was formed in 1965 under NRS 474. The district was set up with the Board of County Commissioners as its de facto governing board of directors. But the way was open in the law for the district to eventually make the change, if ever necessary, to a locally elected board.

The County Commission has for many years relegated the day-to-day operatons of the district to Clark County Fire Department. This includes supervision of all of the district’s revenues and expenditures.

The district has its own independent source of revenue under the NRS. That revenue has never been dependent upon the county or Clark County Fire Department to supplement its needs. The primary source of district funding comes from its allocation of the state Consolidated Sales Tax. The district received $862,000 in revenues for the 2016-17 fiscal year. According to state reporting, the MVFD has received more than $12 million since the year 2000.

The expenditure side has also been carefully accounted for. According to Clark County Fire Department (CCFD) documents, the district’s annual expenses are currently in the $350,000-$450,000 range. The estimated 2016-17 fiscal year expenditures were reported at $392,050. Any surplus revenues have been accounted for and placed in a fund balance for the district. Currently that balance adds up to around $6 million, according to CCFD reports.

“There is a budget in place with a proven track record over the decades that the county has managed our money appropriately,” said David Clegg, chief of Logandale Volunteer Fire Station #73. “The surpluses have sat in our fire district fund since 1965.”

Clegg is advocating that the fire district look closely at separating itself and making the change to an independently governed entity. “The people who established the fire district way back then obviously thought that, at some point, there may have been a concern that people in Moapa Valley might not be getting everything that they need,” he said. “Because they put the mechanism in place for us to strike out on our own if needed.”

Clegg and other advocates of the change felt that having fire district decisions made locally would be more efficient and more effective than having them made in Las Vegas. Furthermore, it would streamline the process of solving some of the district’s key problems with providing emergency medical services (EMS).

One of the main ongoing problems for the district has been providing round-the-clock EMS coverage with a strictly volunteer force. Clegg explained that, though his station has adequate numbers of volunteers on the roster, he still has trouble staffing during the 12-13 hour workday. The other two stations in town are in a similar predicament, he said.
“Let’s face it, everyone is busy nowadays,” Clegg said. “People are volunteering. But their workday and their various careers have a pull on them. They have responsibilities and families to take care of just like any of us. So the old model of a strictly volunteer organization; we are going to have difficulty sustaining that.”

In a public comment at the meeting, Station 73 volunteer Steve Neal expressed specific concerns about the same issue. He said that it was not out of the ordinary during a weekday for the district to receive emergency medical calls that take 20-30 minutes for a response to start. At times, all three stations have to scrap together personnel to start a single team rolling, he said.

Neal referred to a specific incident, which had occured just the week before, when an EMS call came in for the Moapa area. No one locally was available to respond. In the end, a medical unit had to be dispatched from North Las Vegas to respond to the emergency situation.
“That is just not good,” Neal said. “Right now it is just not working. Especially when we all have families and neighbors and loved ones that may be in that position needing that care. I look at the budget and I see approximately $500,000 per year that goes into a savings account. I have to ask: Are we doing the best thing for public safety with that funding?”

Neal said that more incentives were needed to encourage young people to volunteer for the force to be able to cover the daytime hours.

Station 73 volunteer Jorene Dalley agreed. “We need to incentivize our young people,” she said at the meeting. “They are looking for places to go, but they don’t have time to just volunteer. They need an education; so if they can get this and get some kind of compensation, then they might be looking at it more seriously. But I am not sure that our young people can sacrifice at that point in their lives to volunteer.”

Clegg also agreed that a more steady stream of volunteers was needed. But this wouldn’t be a complete solution to the problem, he said. He suggested that it may be time for the district to establish paid EMS positions to take care of coverage during the critical times when volunteers aren’t available. This plan would focus on a full time staff including two teams of one paramedic and one advanced EMT each. These paid crews would team up with volunteers to cover the 12 hour period during the weekdays when coverage is spotty, Clegg said.

Kirkpatrick was adamant that the EMS coverage problem was urgent and needed to be solved immediately.
“That should never happen,” she said referring to Neal’s comment. “We can’t wait to address this issue.

That is really what the primary conversation should be right now. How do we get something today before any of these long term plans. We are going into the holidays when people get sick and can have health issues. We can’t go the next six weeks without addressing it.”
Kirkpatrick assigned the Clark County Fire Department personnel in attendance to have a plan for addressing the immediate problem by the end of the week.

Clegg agreed that an immediate remedy was needed. But he emphasized that this would not be a sustainable long-term fix. “We need full time staff out here to fill that gap,” he said. “Something immediate can be done as a transitional fix. But the sustainability of our model as presently in place is just not currently there. The question is still out there on what direction the district wants to go: more self-directed and locally driven, or continue under the management of Clark County.”

During public comment, Overton Station 74 volunteer Daniel Pray said that some people are concerned that the community might not be capable of making its own decisions. But he pointed to other public organizations that have long functioned locally in a similar manner.
“Some people can’t conceive of the community making its own decisions,” Pray said. “But we do have examples of home rule that are functioning just fine. We have the Overton Power District, the MV Water District and the TV District which have locally elected boards that are doing just fine. This would be no different. The big question is; Would the community be better served being governed from afar or from closer.”

Pray acknowledged that the current Clark County Fire Department administration is supportive, open and transparent in reporting district revenues and expenditures. But he said that it has not always been so with previous administrations.
“How do we know about future administrations?” Pray said. “There are many years when the (CCFD) leadership wouldn’t even acknowledge that we had money in an account, or how it got there. We don’t have guarantees on being able to have these open conversations in the future.”

Overton resident Judy Metz, who represents the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board on the fire board said that there was still a process that should be completed should the district wish to separate from the county.
“I think that we might be putting the cart before the horse a little bit on this,” Metz said. “I am here as a representative of the Moapa Valley Town Board, which is the elected board for the lower valley. Before I could make any decision at all, I’d have to go to them and ask them how they felt about it. I’m open to these things, but I have to bring it before the community and have their opinion.”

Ann Schreiber, representing the Moapa Town Advisory Board agreed. “I don’t think that this meeting is where we can make a decision,” she said. “I agree that my town has to tell me what it wants first.”

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