CAFA to ask Chelsea DDA for 2-year millage exemption

At it’s March 15 meeting, the Chelsea Area Fire Authority Board unanimously agreed to send a letter to the Chelsea Downtown Development Authority Board asking for a two-year exemption from its collection of about $27,000 per year of CAFA’s current millage.

The hope is this relief would help CAFA with its budget for the next two years while the board determines what amount will be needed for a millage in 2018. Because one of CAFA’s two fire stations is in the DDA district, a portion of the millage captured by CAFA for operations is paid to the DDA.

The board also unanimously decided to hold off on a request for a separate capital fund millage and wait until 2018 to ask voters for one millage rather than go about the request in a piecemeal fashion.

“I think that [waiting until 2018] makes more sense,” said Kurt Koseck, Sylvan Township’s representative on the board. He also reminded members that the expenses for the opening of Station 2 in Lima Township won’t be a part of the expense equation two years out.

Currently, CAFA is operating on 1.8 mills, which is about $1.4 million and a significant amount is spent on its employees. In addition, this is the first year of a union contract, which includes strict stipulations such as salary increases and health care benefits.

“Now might not be a good time to ask for an additional millage,” said Craig Maier, Lima Township’s representative on the board, who added, “We’d be riding the back of the bus for millages with the 9-1-1 millage [which voters recently approved] and the school millages [planned for the May ballot].

“In going through the budget,” said new Chelsea Board Member Peter Feeney, “The budget and the millage should be integrated. We need a review and to take a longer view. It’s easy to over or under respond,” he said.

Feeney, who was attending his first meeting, said, “If 2018 is the target, [for a millage] how do we budget in 2016 and 2017 to create confidence for 2018?”

The CAFA board has had to repeatedly dip into its reserve funds during the last several years to pay for operations. And, the board fears dipping further into it should a large emergency expense take place. So, to further cut costs, the administrative assistant’s hours were cut from 25 hours per week to 10 hours per week and changes have been made in overtime practices.

But on the flip side of the budget, the legal expense line item has almost been spent for the year and per the union contract, $14,000 was recently spent on new uniforms.

Personnel expenses are always a major component of any budget and although the board had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, a layoff notice to the last fireman hired was issued this month.

Firefighter Ian Ballard spoke at the meeting, stating that he had received a layoff notice dated March 1, and disputed its root cause.

Among the items the firefighter’s union president stated was that the board had not discussed any layoffs at its January or February meetings.

However, since the passage of the millage, the board has repeatedly made it clear to Payeur that he needs to stay within the 1.8 mills for operations and that in doing so, it might mean firefighter layoffs.

Ballard’s last day on the job is at the end of this month.