Statesboro officials outline proposed fire service fee to cover about half the fire budget

At a public information session, Statesboro officials presented a proposal to levy a fire service fee intended to close an estimated $4 million funding gap for the Statesboro Fire Department.

Fire Chief Tim Grama opened the meeting and described the objective: "The purpose of tonight's meeting is to share information about the fire service fee, how we're looking at utilizing it to help fund fire services in Statesboro." He and a consultant explained the proposed structure, how rates were calculated and what property classes would pay.

The consultant, Ed De Tomaso of Goodman Mills, said the study used five years of call data and the county tax digest to allocate costs equitably across land-use types. "Our approach kinda combines the land use and the square footage and and put those into a hybrid methodology," he said, and described the proposed rates as "1¢ per square foot" for residential and "2¢ a square foot for commercial," with acreage charges and caps intended to limit costs for very large parcels.

Under the example scenarios presented, the average residential fee would be about $19 per month and 63% of residential parcels would be capped at the stated limit; a typical capped residential example showed a $20 monthly bill. Non-single-family residential properties (multifamily, dormitories, restaurants,…