MV Fire District Approves Revised Capital Outlay

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley Fire District (MVFD) finalized the capital outlay portion of its budget during an advisory board meeting held Monday, April 9 in Overton.

The action was a special addendum to an overall budget meeting held on March 15. In that meeting, the board had approved the other elements of the budget. But county staffers and community representatives on the MVFD advisory board had expressed concerns about the capital outlay. That’s because the proposed capital improvements in the first draft would have far overrun the district’s revenue stream and begun dipping deeply into reserves, they said.

But local station chiefs had pointed out that the capital outlay has traditionally been merely a rough projection, not what will actually be spent. Moapa Staton 72 Chief Ron Leachman explained that the process had been put in place several years ago to lock in funding for future capital needs should they arise. This was needed because of the high cost of apparatus and vehicles to equip the stations, he said.

The capital outlay projects the district’s needs over the next five years and is reviewed annually. It includes everything from new fire engines and ambulances, down through fire station improvements, all the way to fire protective clothing, helmets and boots worn by firefighters.

“We have never actually spent as much as is in the capital outlay,” Leachman said. “It is just a way of lining up funding well in advance for if we do need it for something.”

But as recent discussions have commenced about the MVFD breaking away from Clark County control and operating as its own entity, county officials and some MVFD board members have asked the chiefs to put a much sharper point on their projections. So the three local chiefs had gone back to the drawing board over the past month and drafted more modest and specific plans for capital improvements. The resulting proposal, presented last week, was drastically reduced from what was presented earlier.

The original had projected $500,000 per year over the next five years for Apparatus and Vehicles for the three stations: a total of $4.5 million in spending. In the revised document, that category was reduced to a total of $500,000 over the entire five year period.

To start, this category was reduced to a $200,000 outlay for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Instead of purchasing a new rescue vehicle which is currently needed in Overton Station 74, the chiefs proposed a remount of the old unit. This remount involves removing the “box” of the existing rescue from its old chassis, fully refurbishing it, and then remounting it to a brand new chassis.

“That refurbishing process includes new paint, lighting, interior, everything,” CCFD Deputy Chief Larry Haydu. “It comes off looking like a brand new unit.”

And the cost for the remount is significantly less. A new unit would cost the district around $500,000. The remounted unit would come in at only $144,000.

Another major item in the 2018-19 capital outlay was the purchase of a mobile air supply trailer. This equipment would allow the MVFD stations to service and replenish their own SCBA air tanks, rather than having to pay Clark County Fire Department personnel to travel out to do the job. The cost for the trailer was projected at $125,000.

The other major expenditure for the 2018-19 fiscal year was an amount of $350,000 for the area of station improvements. In recent years, the county had secured grant funding to purchase emergency power generators for each of the three local stations. But the grant had not covered the cost of upgrading electrical systems at the stations to allow the generators to be installed. So the station improvement allocation was projected to pay the costs of rewiring the stations.

Those items, along with other more routine capital improvements needs brought the 2018-19 projected cost to a total of $875,000.

But after those initial year’s costs, the chiefs expected a sharp drop in capital needs for the following years. In the 2019-20 fiscal year, only $200,000 in capital costs were projected. That number dropped to $185,000 for the two years following that.

In fiscal year 2022-2023, a possible expense of $300,000 is projected once again in the Apparatus/Vehicles category, as updates to equipment may be needed again by then. This would bring the total outlay for that year to $485,000.

The chiefs emphasized however, that these numbers, projected for the more distant future of the plan, could be changed as needed in the annual budget process.

Generally, the board members felt more comfortable with these revised budget numbers.
“I have to say that this is looking a lot more reasonable than it did at the last meeting,” said MVFD board member Judy Metz who serves as an appointee of the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board.

The capital outlay document was approved with a unanimous vote.
With that piece now locked in, the MVFD board also approved its overall budget with the capital outlay as its final component.

Last month, the board had approved a separate proposal that aimed to ensure round-the-clock emergency medical coverage to the local communities. The measure would fund a full-service medical crew, consisting of a paramedic and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), to be on call during weekday hours of 7 am to 5 pm, when volunteer coverage in the community has traditionally been sparse.

The proposal would also initiate a pay-per-call program among the stations’ volunteer rank and file that would provide compensation for each call as well as for completing required training. This is expected to boost recruitment of new personnel at the stations and create a more robust volunteer base.
The total cost for both of these programs were approved at a total of $305,000 per year.

Seeking just the EMS coverage portion of this plan, the county had recently put out a Request for Proposal to contract similar EMS services during weekday hours from an outside ambulance company. The bid had come back at just under $400,000.
The MVFD board voted unanimously to approve the full budget plan.

The MVFD current revenue from its allocation of State Consolidated Sales Tax comes is at around $850,000 per year. The district’s annual operating budget has usually been at about $350,000 per year.

The district is currently sitting on about $5 million in unspent cash reserves from past year’s revenues.