Baker Co, Fla---For decades, Baker County Fire services have been deteriorating from numbers of volunteers to the buildings themselves. Help is on the way, but it will cost homeowners in Baker County.
‘They shouldn’t be struggling having stuff like that going on," said homeowner Kyle Davis.
Kyle Davis has been inside of Baker County fire stations before during his nursing certification courses.
“I did clinical's at one of them and it is kind of a big issue," Davis said.
Davis says he wasn't surprised to hear people concerned about the current conditions of fire stations in Baker County. Emergency Services Director David Richardson showed us inside Station 30.
From the first few steps inside, you can see broken glass, a leaking roof and an unfinished bathroom. Firefighters are not able to stay here, because of the conditions.
“What money is coming in on Fire assessment we don’t really have any extra to put into these stations like we’d like to have," Richardson said.
Baker County relies on its volunteer firefighters to keep up the stations, and the county only has a dozen active firefighters. At one time, it had 100, some loss likely do to these conditions, according to the fire department.
As a result, county commissioners agreed last week to increase property taxes for those who live in Baker County by 50 dollars a year to be used to update fire stations like this one.
“It’s just like hospitals and stuff, it benefits everybody it’s not just for them, I support it a 100 percent, it’s small price to pay for what they do," Davis said.
According to Baker County fire department, the extra tax would fire up roughly 600,000 dollars. The money will be spread out across eight stations. Some stations only need a few hundred dollars for minor repairs. Here at Station 30, likely a few thousand, according to the Emergency Services Director.
Some homeowners told me off camera they’re tired of having to pay to fix this problem.
“It makes you wonder you know why we have that much money in that equipment just sitting there getting outdated and antiquated," homeowner Chad Searcy said.
Homeowner Chad Searcy says he’s onboard with upgrading stations like this one, but says he’d like to see more of the assessment used to have someone at a station full-time instead of voluntary.
“They could have a satellite office down there, they could work something else out.”
Baker County hopes to also add up to two full-time employees by next year and increase equipment inspections and training.