Last year, voters defeated the measure by 238 votes, or 54 to 46 percent.
“EMS is the majority of our service right now,” Yater said, adding that there have been 631 EMS runs through the first seven months of this year, which puts the department on pace to reach 1,080 by the end of 2012.
In the last five years, EMS runs have increased 8.3 percent in Trenton, from 905 in 2007 to 980 last year.
“The demand for EMS service grows as the population ages,” Trenton Mayor Calvin Woodrey said. “And that puts more demand on the fire department which has led us to try to do something about it.”
City officials say the levy will provide a financial foundation for the fire department to grow as the city grows. Trenton’s population has grown 36 percent in the last decade to nearly 12,000, according to the 2010 census. Trenton is the only city in Butler County still operating with an all-volunteer fire department.
If the levy passes, it will generate approximately $693,000 annually and cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $138 a year. The levy would allow the department to move from an all-volunteer, paid-on-call system to a paid, part-time department by having a three-person, part-time crew staff the station 12 hours per day. It also will pay for emergency vehicle replacements and for other operating costs like supplies, Yater said.
“This is for the safety of the people,” Yater said. “We want them to understand there is a problem of not enough manpower because of relying on volunteers to provide adequate emergency care.
“We are having difficulty in getting people to respond during the day because a lot of our volunteers have full time jobs and are not always available,” he continued.
Trenton has relied more on mutual aid when it could not get shifts covered, according to Yater. That led to city council creating the on-call pay system a couple of years ago which pays a volunteer $5 per hour if they signed up to be one of the three people available for a shift. If they did not sign up, they did not get the on-call pay, Yater said.
Currently, the fire department is funded through EMS billing and the city’s general fund. In 2011, the total fire fund revenue was $479,852 with $300,000 coming from the general fund and $171,970 from billing. The city projected $250,000 to come from the general fund and $160,000 from EMS billing this year, but there is no guarantee with soft billing.
If the levy does not pass, city officials have said changes will be necessary.
“It’s a tough situation,” Woodrey said. “You always want to provide the best service the least amount of money, but (council) will have to take a serious look at the funding of the fire department and decide whether or not we can continue the on-call pay if the levy fails.”
About the Author