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WINTON – A new, three-year contract between Hertford County and its eight rural fire departments has been approved by the county’s board of commissioners.

Now that contract goes to each of the rural VFDs for their individual approval.

The new contract calls for the county to continue to provide equal financial assistance to each of the eight rural departments. That annual amount of $40,817.74 each is paid in monthly installments. That amount is unchanged from the previous contract.

There is a slight adjustment in the new contract for “per call” funding, which will still be paid quarterly. That amount increases from $250 to $300 per call answered within each fire department’s assigned district, as long as that call is in the county. Fire departments answering calls within their respective town limits do not receive per call funding.

Other non-eligible calls (for per call funding) include mutual aid to assist another VFD in the county for calls within their town’s corporate limits; calls to other counties or states where there is no mutual aid agreement in place; and answering EMS First Responder calls.

Another change in the new contract deals with repetitive calls to the same address. The first three calls per quarter to the same tax parcel will be paid at the $300 per call fee. Any subsequent calls (per quarter) to that same address will be paid at a rate of $100 per call.

That was one of the sticking points addressed last month when a large contingent of Hertford County firefighters attended the Sept. 16 meeting of the commissioners. There, they lobbied for an increase in the per call funding, but expressed concern over the then proposed reduced funds for repetitive calls to the same address.

The majority of those firefighters addressing that issue said such a decrease would impact their budgets, especially for the Murfreesboro Fire Department.

Citing figures from the 2023-24 budget, Harrison Revelle, Chief of the Murfreesboro Fire Department, said the repetitive calls issue would cost his department approximately $6,000 per year. Revelle noted that his department responded to 229 calls for service in 2023, of which 122 calls were in the county. Of those county calls, 48 were to Chowan University White’s Crossing, a cluster of student-occupied apartments located just on outskirts of the town’s limits.

However, the increase in the per call funds will help lessen the impact of what the Murfreesboro Fire Department stands to lose on making repetitive calls to White’s Crossing. Based on the numbers Revelle provided for 2023-24, the per call funding for the Murfreesboro VFD falls from $30,500 annually to $29,400.

The new contract pertains only to the Ahoskie Rural, Como, Harrellsville, Millennium, Murfreesboro, St. John, Union, and Winton volunteer fire departments. The only fire department that doesn’t quality for county funds is Station 1 (town of Ahoskie). That’s because they operate with a paid staff and only answer calls inside the town’s corporate limits.