MVFD Board Reorganized

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley Fire District (MVFD) underwent a significant reorganization to its governance structure due to a series of actions taken by its advisory board in a meeting held Tuesday, Jan. 22 in Overton.

An expanded board
To begin with, board members voted for an expansion to the MVFD board. In wishing to make sure that the board was a more legitimate representative body, County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick had previously expressed concern that the board include more representatives of the community at large.

In the past, the five member MVFD board had always consisted of a chief from each of the three local fire stations and a representative appointed by each of the two town advisory boards.

In a County Commission meeting held earlier this month in Las Vegas, Kirkpatrick nominated two additional board members to represent the community at-large. These included Overton resident Joe Davis and Logandale resident Randy Tobler. Davis is a lifelong resident of the Moapa Valley and currently works as the General Manager of the Moapa Valley Water District. Tobler is the owner of True Value Home Hardware in Overton and also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Moapa Valley Water District.
Representatives of the two town advisory boards included Judy Metz, appointed by the Moapa Valley TAB; and Moapa TAB appointee Kirby May.

At the opening of last week’s meeting, Tobler explained that his appointment to the board had come as something of a surprise to him. He felt he was already too overscheduled to give the time and attention needed in serving on the MVFD board as well.
“I would take this responsibility very seriously and I just feel it would take much more time than I have to give,” Tobler said.

Tobler said that he would be sending a letter to Kirkpatrick’s office respectfully declining the appointment.

Nevertheless, the MVFD board approved the two names as appointed by the Commission and Tobler agreed to serve through the current meeting and then send his notice of resignation.

New district chief position
The next item on the agenda was to select a District Chief for the MVFD. This new position would be the supervising manager for the entire district, working with the advisory board and acting as a liaison to Kirkpatrick who, according to statute, has final decision-making authority as the Fire Board Chairperson.

For the current fiscal year, it was proposed that the new position be filled with an interim Chief. Initially, the Interim Chief’s role would be a wholly volunteer position. The board would then have the option of including it in the budget for subsequent years. At that point a full-time chief could be hired.

Logandale Station #73 Chief Tim Deberardinis read a letter submitted by MVFD volunteer member Greg Witter which recommended that Overton Chief Steve Neel be appointed as the District Chief.

“I believe that (Neel) is the leader that we need right now,” Witter stated in the letter.
Deberardinis also added his own recommendation that Neel be selected for the position.
“As I remember, with the qualifications posted, Steve was the only person who had all of the qualifications associated with it,” said board member Joe Davis. “I think that he has definitely shown that he is a good leader. I feel comfortable with it.”
The board approved Neel as District Chief with a unanimous vote.

Board members then specified the procedure for selecting assistant chiefs in charge of each station. It was presumed, though not required in the bylaws, that each of the 3 assistant chiefs would have a seat on the board. These positions would be appointed by the District Chief after receiving advice from the MVFD board. The District Chief would not hold a seat on the board.

What about the RFP?
Next the board focused on proposal made over a year ago by Kirkpatrick. The proposal suggested that the district should hire out its Emergency Medical Services coverage to an outside company. The contract would have been limited to providing service only during daytime hours when the district had difficulty filling its volunteer schedule.

In a meeting held in October 2017, Kirkpatrick had been concerned that EMS was not available in the community during some parts of the day. To ensure full coverage she had asked for a Request For Proposal (RFP) to get bids for contracting a paid crew to fill the scheduling gaps.

The RFP never had a chance to receive a full bid, but the estimate to provide those services had been in the range of $450,000 per year.

Since early last year, though, MVFD officials have put a new volunteer schedule in place using a more cooperative approach between all three local stations. In doing so, the district has been able to cover all EMS calls throughout the past year.

“You have to understand that if EMS isn’t covered, it is the Commissioner that is liable for that, so it was urgent to her that it be covered,” said Davis. “In this case, though, the community has rallied together and taken care of the problem. I think that is great.”
The board voted unanimously to hold off on fulfilling the RFP at this time.

Next year’s budget?
Finally, the board entered a lengthy discussion about the 2019-20 fiscal year budget. The fiscal year starts in July, but the budget for each coming year must be presented for review to the Board of County Commissioners by early February.

Neel explained that there was some difficulty in projecting what the next year’s expenses would be. That is because this has been the first year that the MVFD has operated as an independent entity from the Clark County Fire Department (CCFD). In year’s past, certain incidental services had been bundled in and provided by CCFD at no cost. The current fiscal year is the first period that the local district will be charged for all of those services.

“In my recent conversations with the county my eyes have been opened to how much we will be paying for now,” Neel said. “So I think it’s a good idea for us to just watch this first year and see where our expenses come in.”

But with the budget having to be approved so far in advance, Neel said he wanted to leave options open on certain items by keeping them in the budget, just in case the spending on them turns out to be feasible.

“We may not actually decide to spend that money when the time comes,” Neel said. “But at least we leave the door open in the budget so that we can, if it is possible.”

One such item was the full time MVFD Fire Chief position.
“I think that it is best that we hold off on it for right now until we see what the financial impacts are going to be in this first year,” Neel said. “Once we make that hire, we are kind of committed to keep it in the budget. So we want probably to wait to see if we have those funds available before we do.”

Still, Neel asked that the position be included in the 2019-20 budget just in case it is shown to be possible to fund it.

But some board members expressed concerns about the proposed spending in the budget exceeding the district’s annual revenues. Revenues from the district’s portion of state sales tax, along with annual accrued interest on reserves, comes in at around $940,000 per year. The total budget, with the allocation for the full time chief position, was at $1.26 million.

Davis said that he wasn’t comfortable about the idea of having to dip into the district’s reserves to be able to pay for capital improvements and building maintenance items.
Tobler also was uncomfortable about the spending levels in the budget. “I just never like to see a budget that overruns your revenue,” Tobler said. “It is just not a good place to start.”

Neel explained that this particular year’s budget was different than most. A one-time capital expenditure is going into bringing electrical infrastructure up to code at all three fire stations this year. That will allow for a secondary power generators to be installed to keep the stations in power in case of emergency power outages. That project is budgeted at $360,000. In addition, the district had budgeted a rescue truck retrofit on one of its vehicles. This would cost a total of $180,000. Without these items in next year’s budget, the district would be banking more than $400,000 in its reserve fund, Neel said. He explained that adding to the reserves was more of the historical norm in the MVFD budget in an average year. The district currently has more than $5 million in its reserve account.

Before the vote, Davis asked that the full time District Chief be taken out of the budget for 2019-20 year. This action reduced the overall budget to $1.14 million.

The budget was approved with a unanimous vote.