Plus he said whenever they travel out of county responding to emergencies, “they take the equipment and a lot of times we don’t even hear about it and it’s all titled under the commissioners. I think we should know.”
Commissioner Don Dixon said since the commissioners are ultimately responsible for the agency, the takeover “only makes sense.” He said it is not a reflection of the way the agency is being run but, “I don’t care what the organization is, they should not be allowed in my opinion to raise a tax on our residents and not have input with the commissioners or the voters.”
“It’s a very important service and EMA has been struggling every year constantly for enough money to operate on and to do the other improvements they want to do,” Dixon said. “They never know if the grants are going to be appropriated or not and at the end of the day the commissioners have to stand behind whatever shortage there is and have no input really as far as being able to look at the budget and determine whether in our opinion it is something that needs to be funded or not.”
EMA Director Jim Bolen told the Journal-News his board, “after a long deliberation process” agreed to raise the per capita fees they charge communities— which have been in place since 2010 — from 39 cents to 55 cents next year and 60 cents in 2027. The fee increase will cull an additional $61,742 for a total collection of $212,240 next year and $81,037 more in 2027 for a total of $231,535. The total budget for next year is $699,287 and includes a $67,500 grant from the county general fund.
“We obviously haven’t changed our per capita rate since 2010, so the board had historically reviewed per capita and we were able to, with additional grant funding and some other programs that we were able to leverage, we were able to keep that number down to that number,” Bolen said. “Obviously the grant environment is changing and we’re seeing less and less federal grants and so we needed to increase it to accommodate the new grant environment as well as the inflationary environment.”
The Emergency Management Agency is not a first responder to emergencies, as the local police and fire agencies retain that role. The EMA becomes involved when incidents beyond a common emergency occur and other resources are required.
Hamilton currently pays the most for the service at $24,545 annually and their fee will jump — baring any population shifts — to $37,762. Tiny College Corner’s $57 annual contribution would jump $30 in three years.
Bolen said the commissioners’ idea is a bad one.
“I think if they were to opt out of the agreement that it would have a significant impact on the program that we’ve built over the past 70 years. The program we have now is built upon collaboration, we work with our local jurisdictions regularly” Bolen said. “Those communities invest not only funding into our community but they invest time and effort, resources and I think essentially you are going to disband the agency we have now and build a new agency from scratch and I think that’s going to really impair our ability to provide emergency management programming to the county.”
County Administrator Judi Boyko sent a notice out to all the impacted jurisdictions on Monday to let them know the commissioners would be taking this action and that they will all be given input, “the board will engage with stakeholders to determine the most effective, productive, and least impactful transition plan.”
A leadership change at the EMA isn’t a new concept, the sheriff has been trying to overtake the agency for over a decade. The latest effort was in 2019 after former state Sen. Bill Coley, R-Liberty Twp., inserted a provision in the 2019 transportation bill that allowed the previously illegal takeover by the sheriff.
Rogers told the Journal-News this latest takeover action isn’t related to the sheriff’s previous plan.
“We have not said we were going to do that any other time he’s asked,” Rogers said. “We’ve got a year to go over all the factors, ramifications to see what we need going forward. But we want our crisis management to work smoothly.”
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