By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Taxing entities that express intent to exceed their revenue-neutral rate, or collect more tax dollars than they did the year before, are subject to a public hearing with public comments. Barton County's Fire District No. 1, which serves the city of Claflin and northeast Barton County, went through the process after Tuesday's Barton County Commission meeting. Claflin resident Don Hurtgen, Jr., a former longtime firefighter, offered the public comments.
"I'm not opposed to them getting this increase," he said. "To be perfectly honest with you, what they're asking for is miniscule, but tell me why you want it. Show me what you're wanting to buy. Don't give me a hostile attitude when I come to ask for the paperwork, don't be aggressive toward me when I come in to ask a question."
Fire District No. 1 was represented by Claflin Fire Captain Chris Steiner and Assistant Chief Ryan Oeser. Steiner said Hurtgen had asked only for budgets from 2022-24 and the proposed 2025 and was informed how to obtain the information and submit a Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) request through the county. Commissioner Donna Zimmerman agreed the request needed to go through the county.
"In Barton County, being the governing body of the Claflin Fire District, all the bills are paid through the county clerk's office upstairs," she said. "That would be where the reports would be generated from in order to provide you a list of all the expenditures."
Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson helped the two sides reach a passable resolution.
"I've been in this situation before on the other end of this where people really want to know information," he said. "When it gets to this level, what I always try to do, and usually it works okay, is if everybody shakes hands and says hit the factory reset button and let's start over."
Fire District No. 1 is asking for a mill levy increase of 0.512 mills, or $11,300 more in tax dollars than it collected last year. Steiner said the district has approximately $145,000 in reserves but needs to replace outdated air packs later this fall at a cost of $135,000. The district will know if it receives a federal grant for the purchase at the end of September.
"Our air packs are already three years past," said Steiner. "We can't renew any of our bottles, we can't renew any of our air packs. We've been trying to get the grant to cover this without asking for taxpayer dollars to do it."
In an effort to offset the need for tax dollars, the fire district is raising funds via a gun raffle. Steiner said the district will continue to generate funds with grants and fundraisers to lower the need for tax dollars to replace equipment.
"It's a $50,000 gun raffle," Steiner said. "We've got $19,600-something in guns we're going to give away, so we're going to raise just over $30,000 if we get these last 15 tickets sold. I'm supposed to go see a guy today to sell four more."
"You guys raised more than double what you're exceeding revenue neutral?" Hutchinson asked.
"Correct," Steiner replied.
"Kudos to you guys," said Zimmerman.
"And we're going to try to keep doing that every year," Steiner said.
If the fire district does receive the federal grant in September, Steiner said that money will be used to replace other heavy-duty rescue equipment that is overdue for replacement.