Letter: Sikeston Rural Fire Protection District asks its for voters to support Proposition Safety

Dear Editor:

The Scott County Rural Fire Protection District is asking for our citizens’ support at the April 2, election.

With Proposition Safety, we are seeking approval of a $1,650,000 no tax rate increase general obligation bond issue for the site development, equipping, and furnishing of a new firehouse, to make repairs to existing facilities, and purchase new apparatus and equipment to meet safety standards.

In previous years, we have run bond issues in an attempt to grow our fire district, improve response times and lower the Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating to reduce insurance rates; however, those measures did not pass.

In response to those election results, the District reached out to L.J. Hart and Company, who serves as our municipal bond underwriter, to provide insight on our financial situation. We discovered that the District was not imposing the full authorized tax levy that was approved by the voters in November 2013.

As a result, the District was missing out on tax revenue that it was eligible to receive. In the summer of 2022, the District decided to correct that and recapture the voluntary rollback, which increased the tax rate from $0.5770 to $0.7456 per $100 of assessed valuation. In an attempt to be fully transparent, we advertised the change in July 2022, and the Board approved the rate at the public tax rate hearing in August 2022.

If Proposition Safety is approved, the general fund tax rate will be reduced by about $0.20 and reallocated to the debt service fund to make bond payments, resulting in no increase to the current tax levy.

In addition, at the end of 2022, the District hired Jeff Stroder, CPA, with Beussink, Hey, Roe and Stroder LLC. Mr. Stroder performed an audit of the fire district’s financial statements and issued a clean audit opinion (present fairly in all material respects). Through this process, the District made changes to policies and procedures to help strengthen financial controls. Mr. Stroder has been hired to perform another audit for 2023, and likely each year thereafter to ensure we are staying compliant with regulations and best financial practices.

The purpose of this bond issue is to provide funding to improve our firehouse facilities and ensure safety to our staff and the community. The end goal is to reduce response times and decrease insurance rates.

We are pursuing a general obligation bond issue because this is the cheapest form of borrowing for a municipality. It typically carries the lowest interest rates and costs of issuance. We would appreciate your support and vote on Tuesday, April 2.

Jeremy Perrien

Fire Chief

Scott County Rural Fire Protection District