Saline Fire Board Approves Budget and Eyes Fairer Funding

The Saline Area Fire Board backed a $2 million budget and took first steps toward overhauling its decades-old funding formula.

The Saline Area Fire Department’s Fire Board met Wednesday at the Saline Fire Station where discussion items included the 2025-26 budget, changing the funding model for fire services and setting priorities for the Fire Board for the upcoming year. The Fire Board is comprised of members representing the City of Saline, Lodi, Saline and York Townships.

2025 – 2026 Fire Department Budget:

The Fire Board approved the department’s FY2025-26 budget. The budget totals over $2,000,000 for the year. This includes $1,896,111 for operations, which is an increase of $729,447 from the previous year’s budget. Part of the increase in the department’s operations budget includes additional positions. The Fire Board approved the addition of a Fire Marshall, which has been identified by Chief Jason Sperle as a critical need for the department. Due to chronic under-staffing within the fire department, the fire board also approved three additional fire fighters.

The Fire Board also approved a $200,000 capital improvement budget. Though under the 2024-25 budget, the fire board approved $65,000 towards the purchase of a vehicle for use by the Fire Marhsall.

Discussion of Revised Funding Model for the Fire Department:

There has been much discussion about the inadequacy of how fire services have been funded in the past. Claims of unfairness have been whispered for years. In the original agreement that the jurisdictions have operated under since the inception of the Fire Board, the formula has been hard to explain, hard to operationalize and not very transparent to the public.

Chief Sperle has proposed a change to a taxable-based value funding model. This model will provide representatives from the various jurisdictions to more easily explain how it is determined how much of their tax dollars are used for fire services.

Briefly, a value-based funding model will use the combined taxable value of all homes, property and business withing the service area. Then, the taxable value of properties within a jurisdiction is determined, then that number is divided into the entire service area value and that result will determine what percentage each jurisdiction is responsible for.

The Fire Board deferred discussion of the funding model change to the steering committee of the Fire Board, with the treasurers from each jurisdiction also attending. The results of the steering committee discussion will then be reported back to the Fire Board for discussion and action.

End of Meeting Comments:

It was noted by firefighters in attendance that the tone of the meeting had a very different attitude than previous meetings. One firefighter explained that there was more laughter and cooperative discussions than he had seen in over a year’s worth of meetings. It was the hope of the Fire Board members that the spirit of working together and solving problems will continue.