Kendall County court agrees provisional funding for volunteer fire departments and two 24/7 pilot staffing programs

Kendall County commissioners on Wednesday provisionally adjusted allocations for volunteer fire departments and agreed to fund two pilot 24/7 staffing programs, but asked fire leaders and county staff for performance metrics and a legal review before any long-term commitments.

The court agreed to adopt the departments' requested operating allocations for several volunteer departments and to budget two pilot programs — for the Comfort and Bergheim volunteer departments — at the same level, after county staff added required payroll-related costs. Corinna, a county staff member, reported that the payroll and workers' compensation adjustments bring each pilot package to $384,873; the court confirmed the $384,873 figure by consensus.

Why it matters: Commissioners said the pilots are intended to reduce volunteer fatigue, improve coverage and buy time to study longer-term options (such as an ESD or county employment). Several commissioners and county staff said they want clear metrics, monthly reporting and legal review before committing to a permanent funding model.

The court spent much of the workshop reviewing department-by-department volunteer budgets and reserve adjustments. Corinna explained that the Fire Inspection Fund (Fund 43) is supported only by inspection and permit fees and does not use general tax dollars. On the volunteer allocation line items, the judge and court favored recording actual requests rather than placeholder estimates; for Alamo Springs the court reduced the provisional amount to the department's request of $37,042, and similar adjustments were made for Candelaria, Sisterdale and Waring based on the figures the departments submitted.

Adam Eicholt, representing volunteer fire leadership, described the Bergheim proposal as a request for two full-time-equivalent positions to provide 24-hour coverage. He said the department expects to staff those positions with 15–20 part-time firefighters who would rotate shifts and that the pilot would relieve volunteers and improve response consistency. Eicholt said the department was already seeing increased call volume: "We're on track this year for over 600 runs. We're already at 310 for the year," he told the court.

Commissioner Chapman pressed for accountability. "I don't think we should be giving anyone funds without any way to measure whether this is successful or not," Chapman said, asking for baseline metrics and midyear and year-end reviews. Eicholt and other chiefs said they are preparing monthly reports and said the pilot program is already generating baseline data; they also said the county's computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system currently does not track every individual unit's arrival time, which will limit some response-time comparisons until permissions or procedures are changed.

Legal and payroll questions were central to the discussion. Commissioner Chapman and others expressed concern about county exposure if the county pays for positions but does not control hiring, supervision or workplace policies; Chapman said, "If we're paying an entity and something happens, but yet we have no control over those employees, we're definitely gonna get named in the lawsuit." Corinna explained that county employment would bring lower workers' compensation rates because the county participates in a pooled plan; she calculated that including the county workers' comp rate raised the per-department pilot budget to $384,873.

Court actions and fiscal notes taken at the workshop included: - The court directed staff to record volunteer departments' requested operating figures and adjusted Alamo Springs to $37,042 (the amount the department submitted). - The court agreed by consensus to budget the Comfort and Bergheim pilot staffing packages at $384,873 each (figure reported by county staff to include payroll, benefits and workers' compensation). Commissioners asked that final contracting and any future budget commitments be contingent on legal review and on performance metrics to be developed by the departments and reviewed by the court. - The $75,000 stipend line for volunteer departments remains budgeted under the commissioners' contingency and will be revisited in the final budget round.

Department leaders identified performance measures they can report: coverage hours, changes in volunteer call burden, and counts of calls during staffed hours versus unstaffed hours. Eicholt noted that some response-time comparisons will require additional CAD permissions or manual logging, and commissioners encouraged simple, reproducible metrics if electronic data are not yet available.

Court members also asked county staff to return with precise cost calculations and to invite the county attorney and other stakeholders for round two of the budget workshops. The judge and commissioners said the pilot approach is intended to be temporary and to give the county time to study longer-term governance, employment and funding models. "This is not a forever solution," one commissioner said; the court directed staff to put the pilot funding numbers into the draft budget for further consideration and legal review.

The court scheduled follow-up work in the second round of workshops, including: formal metric proposals from the departments, legal analysis of employment models and liability, and a detailed accounting of all county outlays for firefighting (stipends, radio airtime, fuel, and allocations) so the court can review total county commitments in FY2026.

The court ended the session still balancing multiple priorities: providing immediate support to volunteer departments while limiting long-term fiscal and legal risk and protecting county reserves for future capital needs.