Board approves one-year top-up for two volunteer fire stations after Pennington chief's appeal

The Lee County Board of Supervisors voted to provide the remaining annual allotments to two volunteer stations after Pennington Gap’s fire chief said the departments were not told budget changes in July and that shortfalls left them unable to meet vehicle and utility payments.

The board approved returning the remainder of the fiscal-year allocations to Woodway and Saint Charles — $8,500 each, the amount each had received only half of when the county’s budget was adopted. The motion, made during the board’s April recess meeting, passed after discussion of coverage, station assets and how the county should determine future funding.

Pennington Gap Fire Chief Brian Skidmore told the board he learned this month that both Woodway and Saint Charles had their allotments cut in half when the county passed its budget, leaving him without funds to cover a truck payment and utilities he said were already paid from his department’s budget. “Our money’s already spent, have a truck payment, have utilities for Station 2. The money that was cut does not even cover those expenses,” Skidmore said at the meeting.

Skidmore said Pennington had assumed responsibility for the Woodway and Saint Charles response areas years earlier after their own volunteer departments closed. He told the board his department had stationed trucks and equipment in those locations and had relied on the previously established local allotments to cover basic costs. He asked the board to “fully fund” the allocations the stations had been receiving.

Supervisors pressed on operational details before voting. One supervisor asked whether a funded station had assigned personnel, trucks actually housed at the station and whether the location met an objective standard for station funding. A county official and other chiefs said the county’s fire coverage depends on response times and station location; an insurance agent told the chief the Woodway area would see homeowners’ insurance rise 30–40 percent if a local station no longer qualified under the Insurance Services Office (ISO) distance standards.

Board members also emphasized the need for consistent criteria for station-based funding. “If you’re going to fund by station, then you need to have criteria that dictates exactly what that constitutes,” a supervisor said, listing staffing, assigned trucks and minimum equipment as examples. The board directed staff and the chiefs to develop criteria for future funding decisions and to return with recommendations before the next fiscal year.

The formal motion before the board asked that the remaining FY allocation for Woodway be restored and that the same remainder be provided to Saint Charles for the current year; the motion included a commitment to develop funding criteria before granting permanent, full funding next year. The motion passed. One board member abstained from the final vote; the transcript records no roll-call by name for the affirmative votes.

In discussion the chiefs described operational impacts beyond the immediate cash shortfall: Woodway carries a roughly $13,000-per-year truck payment that the local allotment helps cover, and Pennington has been using its fleet to cover additional territory when other stations are vacant or equipment is in maintenance. Jonesville Fire Chief Mike Twigg and other rescue squad representatives briefed the board on the countywide strain on rescue and ambulance services if resources are reduced.

The board also discussed inventory and equipment transfers from Pennington should the town and Pennington change how they operate EMS after June 30. No formal action transferring trucks or equipment was adopted at the meeting; supervisors asked for an inventory list and said they would return the item to the agenda for formal action in the coming weeks.

Why it matters: the vote preserves local fire coverage for rural areas that chiefs said affect response times and homeowners’ insurance rates, while the board seeks a written funding rubric to guide future appropriations.

What’s next: staff and fire-service leaders will draft objective criteria for station-based funding, compile inventories of vehicles and equipment potentially transferring to county control, and return proposals to the board before the next budget cycle.