County Fire Chief and EMS Director Address Budget Committee with Requests

May 24, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

It’s been almost a year since the county authorized funding for a shared part time paid firefighter position for the DeKalb County Fire Department and the result has been positive according to Chief Donny Green.

Under the program, the county provides funding for one part time firefighter position shared by four different persons, trained and certified, who rotate in and out of the positions as needed. None work more than 24 hours per week and the pay is $10 per hour.

Since its beginnings in 1975 until this past year, the DeKalb County Fire Department had been completely staffed with volunteers but times have changed and in recent years fewer people have stepped up to volunteer.

During Wednesday night’s meeting of the county budget committee, Chief Green asked that pay for the position be increased from $10 to $12 per hour starting with the 2020-21 fiscal year.

“I feel I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t come and ask for a little bit more money for those guys. I am asking that they get $12 per hour which in my opinion is still way under their value for their level of training. These guys are certified firefighters and vehicle extrication technicians. I feel like with the success we have had with the program this year and the value it has added we can certainly justify doing that,” said Chief Green.

“If we go from $10 to $12 per hour it will be about a $4,000 increase in that budget line item. I am not asking at this time to increase their hours. In a normal year I would probably be asking for two additional shared part time paid firefighters because I think I can fully justify that but I know this is not a normal year and a lot of sacrifices will have to be made this year. We have done activity sheets every day. I have had somebody out there and its documented what they have done every day. They do truck maintenance and its not just for the main station. If we don’t have anything for them to do there I send them to one of the other stations. They wash trucks, clean fire halls, do regular maintenance, and more. It has been a huge benefit and worked very well. It has been a phenomenal thing and a huge relief to me to know I have somebody. Just the upkeep of our equipment has been tremendous. If you visit any one of these stations right now you will see that the trucks are clean and the turnout gear is getting washed and maintained. Its things we wouldn’t normally get to do and that saves the county money in the long run when we take care of our equipment,” said Chief.

The DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department is also in the process of adding restroom toilets at three fire stations where there have been none and would like to do the same at three others in the coming year funded from the capital projects budget.

“We have been able to go with something a little more economical. They make a toilet that has a pump on it without having to install a septic system. It has an outside tank which can be pumped once a year. We have gone with this system. It’s cheaper and it saves us a lot of space. In addition to that we have installed a shower at the main station in the restroom. We have the part time guys out there now and if they go on a fire call they need to be able to take a shower there. We are getting a lot of new recruits and some are females. We just added 10 new firefighters Sunday and four of them are females so we will have to be a little more accommodating with restroom facilities,” said Chief Green.

In his budget requests, EMS Director Hoyte Hale asked for funding to purchase new portable radios.

“We need at least ten portables. We have five units and need two portables per truck. We could get ten portables for $5,500,” said Hale.

Efforts are being made to secure a FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grant to purchase a Power-LOAD cot system for four of the ambulances.

“We have applied for an AFG grant for $145,000 with a 5% match for a new loading system from the Stryker company. What that would allow us to do is when we pull up on a call and get out, the cot would automatically come out and lower down and when we get the patient, place him on the cot and begin to load him on the ambulance the system would lift the cot with the patient and place it into the ambulance without the staff having to do any heavy lifting preventing any possible back injuries. That system is $35,000 but if the grant is approved it would equip four of our ambulances,” said Hale.

The county also plans to purchase a new ambulance for the EMS operation in 2020.

May 21, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb County Board of Education has adopted a budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year subject to final approval by the county commission this summer.

Action on the new budget came during a brief special meeting of the school board Thursday evening at the DCHS Cafeteria.

Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said the budget includes a $2,000 pay raise (including the 2% state increase) per certified employee and a $1,000 increase (locally funded) for each non-certified support staff employee.

“With the $2,000 raise for certified staff the state has sent instructional salary funds to equal our weighted average salary with the state weighted average salary plus 2% that goes on top of our instructional salary funding. That will be an average of around $1,500 coming from the state for salary increases per teacher and then what we would be doing locally is giving them around $500 more to equal the $2,000 total raise. The non-certified raise of $1,000 per staff member will be totally locally funded,” said Director Cripps.

“We are trying to improve teacher pay because we (DeKalb County) still lag behind the state average in teacher salaries,” said Cripps.

The spending plan for 2020-21 is basically the same as this year’s budget with few exceptions.

“We are looking at the same amount of money we had last year not counting step increases. Basically what we are asking for is the raises, increases in employee health care insurance, and funding to buy land for construction of a new school, “ said Director Cripps.

Funds are included in the school budget for the purchase of 24.5 acres of property on North Congress Boulevard near Northside Elementary School for construction of a new pre-K to 2nd grade elementary school. The price is $18,000 per acre for a total of $441,000. The purchase is subject to favorable core drilling and a TDOT traffic study.

No new teaching positions will be created in 2020-21 and to help prevent a reduction in staff due to possible decreases in state BEP funding a few teachers already in the system may be reassigned to fill openings from retirements or to meet other needs.

“We are not asking for any new money for teaching positions but we are looking at adding a teacher in special education. It’s not a new position. Its one we already have but that person will be working with students and teachers in classrooms at every school,” said Cripps.

“We plan to add two in-school suspension aides to share around the schools for another way to discipline students without suspending them or sending them off to the alternative school. We want to keep them in school and not lose them or their academics,” he said.

“Mrs. (Susan) Hinton is retiring (as adult high school coordinator). What I would like to do is move her position to the alternative school so we can add more students there. It also puts another teacher in the building. We would not be losing a teacher nor saving money. We would just be relocating that teacher and while we would keep the adult high school program it would be done online. That’s what a lot of districts are doing now. They are going to an online platform. We already have an online platform that we have been doing with our other students called Ingenuity and students can further their education through that,” Director Cripps continued.

“Mrs. Libby McCormick (Librarian) is also retiring at Northside. Their numbers have fallen at Northside and the Middle School numbers are high. That 6th, 7th, & 8th grade group is huge so we are going to move that teaching position to the middle school to save money. That’s how we are going to look at moving teachers around. We will make sure everybody(school) has enough teachers but we have to be diligent with how we work our personnel with the money being sent to us,” added Director Cripps.

Technology funding will be used to help cover increased costs of textbooks needed to meet the state curriculum.

“Books are going to be out the roof. We were looking at $400,000 to $500,000 for books this year. Digital is not saving us anything either because they are charging a yearly subscription for those. When it first came out you could buy digital cheaper. We were supposed to adopt new math textbooks for next year but the costs have gone up so much the state has postponed that in order for the district to have two years to pay them off. Those books are over $200 each. We are not seeking any additional funds for books. We have moved some money around from technology to books because the money coming from the Federal CARES ACT will be directed toward technology to buy computers, Wi-Fi, etc. so that if we do need to again teach remotely from home each student could have access to those things and WI-FI hot spots,” said Cripps.

Plans are to purchase at least one new school bus.

“We bought two buses last year and we will probably reduce it to one bus this year. It depends on how the money flows,” added Cripps.

The state will also be continuing funding for ACT testing next school year.

“With ACT the state sends us money to test our students but where they (students) didn’t get to take the ACT this year the state is now requiring that we double down and test seniors and juniors so that money sent this year for ACT which wasn’t used will have to be spent and next year they will send more money for ACT testing as well,” said Cripps.

Cripps said the school budget for 2020-21 can be funded with available monies thanks to good management practices of recent years.

“We have done really well with our budgets the last few years keeping about a million dollars to the good,” he said.

May 21, 2020
By: Leigh Fuson

The 2020 recipient of DeKalb County 4-H scholarship is Clayton Crook. The $500 scholarship is given in memory of Ms. Jo Ellen Huffman, former administrative assistant at UT Extension, and Mr. Ron Rogers, former 4-H agent. The scholarship was established in 2017 through donations and is awarded to an active 4-H member attending college or technical school.

Clayton is the son of Patrick and Jana Crook of Alexandria. Clayton has been an active 4-H member since the 4th grade, starting with the poultry project and school contests. He later participated in horse judging, livestock judging, outdoor meat cookery, and poultry judging. Clayton has the rare honor of saying he was a state winner in two contests: outdoor meat cookery and poultry judging. After winning the state poultry judging contest, he and the team went on to compete at the National 4-H Poultry and Egg Conference in Louisville, KY. The team earned 1st place in the market egg division, becoming a big part of DeKalb County 4-H history.

Clayton has also been an active Honor Club and All-Star member. He has served as the Honor Club Service Chair and the Vice President. He has attended regional All-Star Conferences and State 4-H Round Up where he competes in the Beef project. Clayton also attend State 4-H Congress in 2018. In 2019, he received the highest level of recognition for a Tennessee 4-H member: Vol State.

Clayton is planning to attend Tennessee Tech University to major in Agriculture Engineering. DeKalb County 4-H and UT/TSU Extension wishes him the best of luck and is proud of all his accomplishments. For more information about 4-H or the scholarship fund, please call 615-597-4945.

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