Saturday, September 27, 2014
LIBERTY
Liberty Township has reopened its fire station on Belmont Avenue.
The station, one of two in the township, closed July 17 as a way to save money. Township officials reopened it Sept. 16.
Township officials had said they closed the station along with other cost-saving measures as a way to curtail a projected $225,000 deficit at the end of 2015.
The station’s closing affected response time for approximately 5,000 homes in the northern and western parts of the township, and the firefighters’ union president, Justin Graham, requested immediately that it be reopened.
Township trustees also wanted the fire station open before November, because they didn’t want water to freeze in the firetrucks that were moved to the other station on Logan Way and had to be parked outside.
Township officials had said before that they were waiting for Trumbull County to give them information about how much real-estate tax money they would be collecting through February before they re-opened the station.
That did not occur until Friday, fiscal officer Steve Shelton said.
He said the township is getting more than $346,000 in an advance settlement. Of that, $149,000 is for the fire department.
“That sounds like a lot, but one payroll is $100,000,” he said.
He said he is going to look at the rest of the department’s account and determine how long the money will last.
Since he began telling the township administration in May that the fire department was facing a deficit, the department has cut way back on overtime, he said. It cut back from 127 to 21 hours in a two-week period, he said.
Closing the Belmont station saved only between $2,000 and $2,500 a month in utilities, he said, but because of minimum staffing requirements under the union contract, overtime wasn’t necessary to staff two stations.
Township administrator Pat Ungaro said he is glad the Belmont station has reopened to serve the north and west.