Marion County commissioners review proposed updates to fire assessment methodology and potential rate increases

Marion County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday held a workshop to review proposed updates to Marion County Fire Rescue’s municipal services benefit unit (MSBU) assessment methodology, including rate calculations, examples of property impacts and options for implementing changes.

Fire Chief James Banta, Marion County Fire Rescue, opened the presentation, calling the meeting “an important opportunity for us to review and discuss the future of Marion County Fire Rescue’s assessment structure,” and said the review aims to keep funding “fair, sustainable, and aligned with the evolving needs of our residents and our businesses.”

Consultant Sandy Newbarth of Accenture (formerly Government Services Group) described the study’s two-part approach to the assessment: a demand component that allocates costs by where firefighters spend time in service (training, apparatus testing and other non-available time) and an availability component that apportions the remainder of assessable costs across structure-equivalent units (EDUs) or parcels. Newbarth summarized the study’s five-year average assessable budget and how the two components translate into per-unit charges.

Why this matters: The MSBU pays for a portion of fire-protection costs that would otherwise be covered from other revenue sources. Changes to methodology or the level of budget funded by the MSBU will shift the distribution of costs among residential, commercial, institutional and vacant-land property owners.

Key figures and methodology - The study uses a five-year average net expenditure of about $86,000,000 and identifies roughly $57,681,000 as the assessable portion of that budget (the portion allocable to the MSBU). Newbarth said the assessable portion is split between the demand and availability components. - Demand (time firefighters are not available to respond): 35.68% of assessable costs, roughly $20,580,000 in the study.…