By Nick Hytrek
Sioux City Journal
SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Iowa — South Sioux City voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a measure to reallocate city sales tax revenues to enable the city to hire three firefighters.
The measure passed 291-25. Results are unofficial until three provisional ballots are processed and counted in coming days, but they obviously will not change the result.
“I couldn’t be happier,” South Sioux City Fire Chief Doug Koopman said. “This is a huge win for the city of South Sioux City and a huge win for the firefighters as well. It’s good to see they (voters) value their public safety and showed that by showing up to the polls tonight and overwhelmingly voting to pass this.”
Tuesday’s special election asked voters to approve the reallocation of approximately $330,000 in sales tax revenue currently used for streets and infrastructure to the fire department. The added funding will enable the city to pay and equip three firefighters, increasing the department’s full-time force to 12 without impacting the city’s budget.
The measure does not increase the city’s sales tax rate, and city officials have said grants and state funding for street and infrastructure projects could offset the sales tax revenue shift to the fire department.
The department currently has nine full-time firefighters and is supplemented with volunteers. Increasing to 12 full-time firefighters will improve safety, both for the community and firefighters, Koopman said previously, and help the department to better respond to the rising number of emergency calls in the growing city. Once in place, the new hires will increase staffing to four firefighters on each of the three work shifts, enabling the department to meet National Fire Protection Association standards of having four firefighters respond to a fire within four minutes.
“The biggest thing is just for routine medical calls and structure fire calls, to be able to put the four required firefighters on the scene immediately,” Koopman said.
Koopman hopes to have the three firefighters hired by the end of the year.
The city also has applied for a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant that would pay the salaries of an additional three firefighters for three years, bringing the department up to 15 full-time firefighters. Koopman said the city should learn if it will receive the grant in September or October.
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” he said.
South Sioux City’s fire department was a 100% volunteer service until 2008, when its first full-time firefighters were hired. In 2016, the city hired its first full-time fire chief and three firefighters. More were added in 2018 to bring the department to its current staffing level.
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