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By Jim Buice

For the Clemmons Courier 

Before the calendar turned to 2025, the Lewisville Town Council decided to get together and discuss what Mayor Mike Horn called “an inevitable change” in how fire service will be handled involving the town and Forsyth County.

The council called a special called meeting in December at the Mary Alice Warren Community Center after Lewisville Fire Department officials asked if the board was interested in hearing a presentation on changes throughout the county involving volunteer departments with some mergers and shifting of funding — and possible impacts going forward.

Horn also noted the fire department’s current contract expiring at the end of June of this fiscal year and a number of new council members who don’t have any background on the department. 

So Darin Needham, the fire chief in Lewisville, shared a PowerPoint presentation entitled “Lewisville Fire Protection — Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” to the council about the history and current state and future of the department with a goal of gauging the council and town’s role. 

The ultimate council consensus was to be judicious and look at the department’s options. An update of the process will be provided at the council’s annual retreat, which is scheduled Jan. 31-Feb. 1. Also, it was agreed upon that any financial obligations need to be known by budgetary time.

“We probably started this conversation at least two years ago,” Horn said, “but the most recent shot of the bow by the county was when they withheld funding that comes to our fire department that is collected in our fire district, and I think that really prompted a whole new level of discussion and consideration.”

Horn said that whatever changes in the coming year will be driven by the county’s priorities, but the town decided it was time to find out where everybody is.

“Tonight’s meeting is not to say yes or no,” Horn said, “but to hear the presentation from the fire department and put it on our table for discussion.”

Needham’s presentation started by looking back at the beginnings with the department being founded in 1951 by the Lewisville Civic Club as a volunteer fire force. It is currently housed in two locations — 216 Lewisville-Clemmons Road and more recently at 9420 Shallowford Road.

Needham said that the first fire tax district for Lewisville was established in 1984 with a initial rate of three cents. The current tax rate is nine cents.

As for staff, there are 19 full-time career staffers and a governance of a nine-member board that includes five civilians and four volunteer department personnel.

The fiscal year 2024-25 budget includes $2.63 million in revenues with $2.2 million in 9-cent fire district tax revenues, $65,000 in grants and $365,000 from other sources. There is $1.4 million in cash reserves and $710,000 in debt — building, $345,000, and engines, $365,000.

The $2.63 million in expenses includes $1.63 million in personnel salary and benefits (including volunteer insurance), $383,000 in station and equipment maintenance, $344,000 in capital purchases and loan repayments, and $275,000 in operating costs.

After covering some of the basic numbers, Needham said he wanted to get to “the two major issues — attracting and retaining employees and increasingly restrictive contracts that undermine the future of local fire protection.”

Needham added that it has become increasingly difficult for the local fire department to recruit and retain firefighters — pointing to being excluded from the local employee retirement system and the loss of firefighters to municipal departments increases involving entry-level training costs.

As for contracts, Needham said that the standard contract from 1981 to 2019 gave fire departments autonomy in exchange for tax district funds without expiration. However, he said there were major changes to the county contract from 2019 to 2024, including:

• Greater intrusion by the county in local decision-making
• All assets of fire department revert to county or successor organization if departments don’t sign new contract
• Fire district tax collected in Lewisville will be redistributed to other districts in the county
• Fire district tax funding to be withheld if contract is not signed

Also regarding contracts, Needham said that the new proposed county contract was only signed by one department, and the county withheld funding for all fire departments that did not sign.

And negotiations between the county and fire departments resulted in an extension of the existing contract until June 30, 2025.

Regarding the Lewisville Fire Department’s future based on the current situation, Needham brought up recruitment disadvantages against the department with state retirement, increased costs to train recruits, loss of experience, continued loss of employees to departments with state retirement and competing against other departments for funding.

As to what does this mean to Lewisville residents, Needham said:

• Restricted or redirected funding will mean reduced service
• Increased insurance cost
• Transfer of equipment and personnel to other county departments
• Fire district taxes will increase to fund other county fire departments

All of this led to the ultimate question of if the town wished to work with the Lewisville Fire Department to look at possible options/solutions.

Needham concluded his portion of the meeting by saying: “For Lewisville specifically, the thing that we need the most is quite literally a path into that state retirement system. I think the critical piece here is that our contract is valid through June of 2025, and that’s why we really wanted to come and get in on the radar for the town.”

With lots of questions looming for the council, including what Ivan Huffman said, “all those what ifs,” Horn concluded by saying: “If we can go through the exercise and understand what our options are, then when then come back and say ‘here’s what we believe,’ we’re at least prepared to know that we have given this our consideration for all the possibilities.”