A special joint meeting of the Oxford Township Board and Oxford Village Council will be held 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 17 at Fire Station #1 to discuss placing fire operational and Advanced Life Support (ALS) millage proposals on the November 2 ballot.
The meeting agenda will consist of a presentation by Fire Chief Jack LeRoy and possible action regarding the requests? placement on the ballot.
If officials okay the requests, voters could be asked to approve 1.75 mills for the fire department’s operations (including the hiring of two, additional full-time firefighters) and 1.5 mills to start and maintain an ALS program, which would include purchasing new equipment and hiring three full-time firefighter/paramedics (called fire-medics).
The current fire operating millage, set to expire in December 2005, was approved by voters at 1.5 mills, but due to the Headlee Amendment, it is scheduled to roll back to 1.3043 mills next year.
Should a new operating millage be approved in November, the fire department would seek to have the current one nullified and the new rate levied beginning in December 2004, according to Fire Administrative Assistant Margie Payne.
If the ALS millage is approved, it would not be levied until December 2005, Payne said.
The current voter-approved fire operating millage is only levied over the unincorporated portion of the township. The village levies its own fire millage (1.27 mills which it contributes to the department), which it can raise or lower by a vote of its council, not village residents.
One of the main issues township and village officials are expected to discuss is, if these two millage requests are placed on the November ballot, would the two entities continue to levy separate fire taxes or would the township levy them over both the unincorporated and incorporated (village) portions, should voters approve.
‘I’m not in favor of the township collecting all the taxes to do it,? said Councilman Steve Allen at the Aug. 10 pre-formal village meeting. ‘I mean we’ve collected our taxes here (in the village) to fund fire millages from almost the inception of how fire services are delivered now and haven’t had any issue with it.?
‘I agree with you. There’s no issue. We don’t even have to have an election to collect the millage. All we would have to do is vote for it and pass it by council because we are an incorporated village,? said village President Renee Donovan.
Chief LeRoy said as part of the new fire operations millage request, the department wishes hire two additional full-time firefighters. During the daytime hours, the chief said the department is ‘short-handed? and ‘barely turns out? the minimum number of personnel required by law to battle a structure fire.
The department is currently staffed by one full-time chief, four full-time firefighters and approximately 30 paid-in-call firefighters. During the daytime hours, a majority of the paid-on-call personnel works outside the area and is unavailable to respond to calls.
With regard to the second millage request, LeRoy said the department needs to begin providing ALS ‘in order to provide the best service possible? to residents. Currently, the fire department can only provide Basic Life Support (BLS), a first-response emergency medical service which is handled at the scene by firefighters cross-trained as Emergency Medical Technicians.
Oxford’s ALS is currently handled by American Medical Response, a private contractor which provides ambulances for transport to the hospital and paramedics, who have more extensive training and can administer a higher level of treatment than EMTs.
LeRoy said AMR’s response times are ‘not satisfactory.? He noted that, for the most part, AMR has not been meeting the 12-minute-or-less ALS response time required for suburban areas, a protocol set forth by the Oakland County Medical Control Authority. There’s also an ‘uncertainty? at times as to whether an AMR ambulance is even available for transport, the chief said.
If voters approve funding for ALS, LeRoy said his goal would be to have one firefighter/paramedic manning each of the two fire stations 24 hours a day.
Three additional firefighters/paramedics would be hired, if an ALS millage was approved. The current four full-time firefighters plus the two additional firefighters hired under the new operational millage, again if approved, would undergo paramedic training thereby bringing the department’s total number of fire-medics to nine.
LeRoy noted that fire departments in Brandon, Addison and Groveland townships currently provide ALS, while Oakland Township will begin offering the service Oct. 1.