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Boardman Township officials hope to improve insurance rating at evaluation this week
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Pitzer
BOARDMAN
Township officials hope to improve a rating of the township’s fire protection services that affects insurance rates for homeowners and businesses.
The Insurance Services Office, which rates municipalities’ fire protection services on a scale of 1 to 10 for insurance companies, will evaluate the township’s services on Wednesday.
Boardman’s current rating is a 5, a number which Fire Chief Mark Pitzer would like to bump up to a 4.
“By us going from a 5 to a 4, that might be a cost-savings to our residents, and most importantly our businesses. If we would improve, it would be a great benefit to the community,” he said.
The evaluation is not only of the fire department; the dispatch center and water supply also factor into the rating, Pitzer said. The evaluation of the fire department is of equipment, personnel and training, he said.
Pitzer said the township has improved its fire protection services in key ways since the last ISO evaluation five years ago.
“One of the areas we’ve lacked [in] is with some of our equipment,” he said.
The department has added a ladder truck that reaches farther than the old one, he said.
The township’s water supply also has gotten better, he said, with the improvement of a water tower on Erskine Avenue in Youngstown.
The township also got a new radio-dispatch system two years ago, which it shares with Austintown. Boardman officials say the new system provides clearer communication than the old frequency and that there are fewer dead points.
Pitzer said another improvement to fire protection services is firefighter training.
Staffing, however, has remained the same, which Pitzer says is one of the department’s biggest weaknesses.
“Money is the answer to fix a lot of things, and we don’t want to burden our residents ... [but] it would be nice to increase staffing in the future,” he said. “Equipment is nice, but it doesn’t put out fires. People do. And that’s where we need to improve.”
In the future, Pitzer said he hopes to add a fourth fire station and improve the department’s mutual aid with neighboring communities.
“I believe in the future ... at the five-year mark, we can definitely improve on our ISO rating,” if not sooner, he said at a board of trustees last month.