During the Knox City Council meeting last night, members considered a change to the Fire Protection Agreement between the City and the Knox-Center Township Volunteer Fire Department.
As things were, volunteer firefighters would receive $10 per call, regardless of the time spent at a location. Mayor Dennis Estok said that whether they’re there for five minutes or five hours and they would still only receive $10. After attending a meeting recently Mayor Estok saw a need for an adjustment.
“I went to the Indiana Conference of Mayors meeting,” Estok said, “basically, big cities have full-time and small cities a lot of volunteers, and $10 was way too low, most of them were paying more than $10 per call. So on this here, I’m recommending that we increase it to $14 a call.”
To add to the mayor’s statements, Clerk-Treasurer Jeff Houston noted that when he looked back at the records he found that there was no mention of an increase ever being on file.
The mayor said that the cost of implementing the $4 increase would be well within the money allotted in the budget for fire department calls and it would be able to absorb the raise without drastically impacting the overall budget. The amendment to the fire protection agreement was unanimously accepted by the council and the volunteer fire department will now receive $14 per call.
