{"id":33561,"date":"2026-02-13T12:27:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=33561"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:27:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:27:52","slug":"township-pays-fire-protection-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/13\/township-pays-fire-protection-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Township pays fire protection bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington Township has paid its bill for 2026 fire protection provided by the City of Decatur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contracted amount is $29,875.60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three other townships \u2013 Root, Union and St. Mary’s \u2013 are also in the Decatur department’s coverage area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city increased its protection fees for 2026, the first time rates were boosted since some time in the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the city was faced with a roughly $2.5 million bill for a new aerial ladder truck, it was discovered that the four townships were paying just 6% of the city’s fire department budget while 25% of the city’s fire (and some medical) runs were being made to those townships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCity residents are subsidizing county residents,\u201d Mayor Dan Rickord said at the time. \u201cWe’re not interested in sticking it to anyone, but everybody has to pay their fair share.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, after much discussion, it was decided to boost the fire protection fees by 3% of the fire department’s annual budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the fire department’s budget for this year set at $1,144,659 million, the 3% hike (6% to 9%) will bring in an additional $103,019.31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost of fire protection to the four townships was divided proportionately according to their net assessed valuation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total net assessed valuation for the four amounted to $488,034,545:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Root, $181,823,566.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington, $142,243,566.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Mary’s, $86,333,173.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Union, $77,634,240.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the townships will pay the following for fire protection this year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Root, $38,117.14<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington, $29,875.60<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Mary’s, $18,543.48<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Union, $16,483.09<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 2023, Washington Twp. had a listed population of 8,767.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STARTED:Two new members of the Decatur Fire Department officially began their duties on February 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucas Juengel and Christopher Jones were chosen from a field of 11 applicants at the start of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones and Juengel bring the department to eight full-time (or career) firefighters, one short of a full complement, along with Chief Jeff Sheets and Assistant Chief Chad Baumann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department was hit hard last year by losing several firefighters to high-paying jobs in the nearby area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Washington Township has paid its bill for 2026 fire protection provided by the City<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-33561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Decatur-fire-logo-big-Copy.jpg?fit=526%2C526&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33563,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33561\/revisions\/33563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}