With a $800,000 discount on the original amount of $1.6 million for the year and about $125,000 in reserves, Valparaiso will continue to receive fire protection from the city of Niceville. In the meantime, Niceville taxpayers will eat at least a substantial part of the $1.2 Million operating cost that Niceville City Manager David Deitch says is required to protect Valparaiso.

For the time being.

Niceville City Manager David Deitch attended the meeting of the Valparaiso City Commission to pitch his offer of Fire Protection on a contract basis for $800,000 per year.

He told the commissioners that the city of Niceville’s taxpayers had subsidized Valparaiso’s fire protection for years and that he could not justify that arrangement any longer. “The city of Niceville is not trying to railroad the City of Valparaiso into anything,” Deitch said in response to an accusation from Commissioner Kay Hamilton – who would provide the lone ‘no’ vote against the deal. “We’ve just had a five-year relationship where we provided all the funding for the manpower for the city of Valparaiso’s fire department. That is a circumstance we can no longer financially sustain. There’s a reason that the City of Valparaiso’s police budget is three times the fire budget – because you don’t have any manpower to pay for.”

“Apologies to Niceville. We weren’t trying to mooch,” Valparaiso Commissioner Chris Wasdin said to Deitch at the Valparaiso budget hearing.

Last week, commissioners for the smaller city close to Eglin Air Force Base balked at a bill $400,000 more expensive than the offer Deitch put on the table at the budget hearing on September 16. With those numbers, the Valparaiso commissioners faced several unpalatable solutions: Cut fire protection in the city or raise taxes.

At their meeting on September 9, they threw all the extra cargo on the ship overboard in an attempt to make their budget boat float. They cut all empty positions at the city and reduced their current employees’ cost of living adjustments (COLA) to a 1% increase. Inflation for the last year in Northwest Florida was 2.3%. This COLA effectively cut city workers’ pay by a little over a percentage point.

Still, the city must pull from its $1.2 Million in reserves to balance the budget, a State of Florida requirement of its municipalities.

Thanks to the $800,000 deal, which must still get approval from elected officials in Niceville to be valid, Valparaiso will hire what they have tentatively decided to call a “recruitment officer.” That officer will work for and be paid by the City of Valparaiso while answering to Niceville Fire Chief Tommy Mayville for a budgeted $75,000 annually. That officer will hire firefighters and recruit volunteers for an independent Valparaiso department and would, in theory, become the Valparaiso Fire Chief when that department can stand independently.

In the meantime, the recruitment officer and the firefighters he (it’s a he, we’ll get to that in a minute) hires will report to the Niceville Fire Chief.

The responsibility for fire protection will stay with the city of Niceville, which will help the city of Valparaiso recruit and train its own firefighters. Those recruited firefighters will work for the city government of Valparaiso and would eventually lower the money owed annually to the City of Niceville per the tentative agreement Deitch, and the Valparaiso City Commission hammered out in the budget meeting.

Niceville’s City Government will meet for their final budget hearing on September 19.

Different Plans

At the beginning of the special budget hearing, commissioners heard from three potential suitors who could provide fire protection to the residents of Valparaiso. Niceville Fire Chief Tommy Mayville and, City Manager David Deitch and East Niceville Fire Chief David Birch attended in person. Charlie Frank, a Valparaiso Resident, former assistant chief for the Valparaiso Volunteer Fire Department, and Current State Volunteer Fire Coordinator, attended by teleconference.

Chief Birch, who had the initial lowest offer from an outside agency, told the commission they could only go as high as their $1.2 million number they gave last week. “We were asked to maybe come down a little smaller and scale back some of the services that we would provide the city of Valparaiso. We looked pretty hard at it, and honestly, as a fire chief, I don’t feel comfortable scaling back to maybe something a little bit more attractive because of the cost of doing business. I apologize for that. But, as I’m sure Chief Mayville would attest to, and the city manager of Niceville would attest to, business isn’t cheap and it’s very difficult.”

The City of Niceville, represented by City Manager David Deitch, came down on it’s costs a second time to reach a proposed $800,000 per year for services. They had initially submitted a letter on August 28 that informed the Valparaiso Commission they would need $1.6 Million for services. They dropped several hundred thousand dollars by the meeting on September 9. The proposal would keep a fully professional force in Niceville, requiring nine firefighters across shifts.  

Initially, Charlie Frank proposed to the commission a hybrid model similar to what was in place before Niceville took over and brought a nine-member, fully professional force to the smaller city. Frank said he could confidently tell the commission he would be able to hire three full-time firefighters and multiple part-timers to fill out shifts. The plan would be to slowly replace part-time times with volunteers who would be paid a stipend of about $120 for a 12-hour shift.

The commissioners ultimately decided to stay with the city of Niceville for at least one year – and hire Frank without a competitive selection process typical for government positions at all levels. Deitch noted that Valparaiso could cancel their agreement just as soon as the city had hired enough firefighters to provide the city with protection. Chief Tommy Mayville said that the process of hiring and recruiting professional, part time and volunteers would likely take longer than a single year.  

Getting Volunteers, part-timers, and professional firefighters.

Commissioner Kay Hamilton expressed her favorable feelings toward a hybridized fire station that worked professionals and volunteers together (Frank’s proposal). Ultimately, it came down to budget for her. “I think that we really need to explore this because it’s taken such a huge hit on our budget that I think that we should make our decision based on the best deal that we could get,” she said.

Commissioner Ed Cox, the city commissioner in charge of oversight on the fire department, broke ranks to critique the move. “I really don’t like the idea of gambling on the safety of our citizens, when we’ve got a chance to continue what we’ve had for the last five years. And this other proposal [Frank’s proposal] is only for three people and we don’t even know if we can fill that.”

Commissioner Chris Wasdin expressed doubts as well. “We’ve heard how it’s hard to recruit volunteers, and people don’t like working part-time anymore.”

Academies around the Florida Panhandle from Pensacola to Tallahassee have graduated or will soon graduate new firefighters, according to Frank.

Chief Mayville says that’s true, the regional academies have graduated those firefighters. But, they may be next to impossible to recruit. “When people are paying the money (beach-area fire districts and departments) are paying firemen… We’re trying to retain them. They’re leaving our departments and are going to the other beach departments. Panama City’s offering them a $10,000 sign on bonus just to walk in the door. So, it’s very hard to compete, very hard.”

Chief Birch noted that he stopped using volunteer firefighters altogether several years ago for two reasons – insurance costs and the limits placed on basic firefighters. “A firefighter I can’t go into a burning building without a firefighter II right next to him,” Chief Birch told the commission, “So, it gets very difficult for the volunteers.”

Mayville also noted that Niceville maintains a volunteer program – but it’s ranks are filled with “specialists.”

“I think we’ve got two or three on the books, and they offer unique services, like a dive master. I think one’s a pilot, one’s a doctor. Chief Birch will tell you the same thing, it’s very very difficult to get people,” Chief Mayville said.

How Did Niceville Become Responsible for Valparaiso’s Fire Protection in the First Place?

Five years ago, the city of Valparaiso’s Fire Department had a model similar to the one proposed as an alternative to Niceville’s continued protection. After what was deemed a ‘failure of leadership’ by the Valparaiso City Commission at the time, the Valparaiso Fire Chief was replaced on an interim basis by Niceville Fire Chief Tommy Mayville in an agreement between then Niceville City Manager Lannie Corbin and the City of Valparaiso. Mayville served in that capacity since.