City Commissioners to Vote on Putting Fire Millage on Ballot, Joining MPO

Traverse City commissioners will vote tonight (Monday) on putting a millage request on the November ballot that would allow the Traverse City Fire Department to expand, becoming the city’s primary ambulance transport provider. Commissioners will also vote tonight on having the city join the region’s new metropolitan planning organization (MPO), coming alongside approximately a dozen other local municipalities who’ve agreed to participate.

Fire Millage
Commissioners will consider putting a millage request to voters this fall to expand Traverse City Fire Department (TCFD) operations.

The funding request would allow TCFD to provide first-response ambulance services for the city, rather than contract with an outside provider. A feasibility study from consulting firm TriData LLC found that moving ambulance services in-house could help lower response times – a key consideration with time being of the essence in medical emergencies and Traverse City’s population continuing to grow, the firm said.

A presentation from TCFD that will be reviewed with commissioners tonight notes that the majority of patients who require medical ambulance transport are over 55. Over half of all Traverse City households fall into that category. According to TCFD, bringing services in-house will offer benefits including continuity of care, improved response times, more consistency, expanded services, and increased public educational outreach. The department has a stated goal of having its first engine on the scene within four minutes in at least 90 percent of cases.

Under the proposal, TCFD would acquire two new ambulances and aim to increase staffing, including have nine firefighter paramedics and an emergency medical services (EMS) captain. That could help address existing vacancies in shifts and reduce overtime, according to the presentation. TCFD staff have already accrued over 1,258 mandatory overtime hours in 2023, department data shows. Several  fire departments in Grand Traverse County already provide transport services, including Blair, Green Lake, Peninsula, East Bay, and Long Lake townships, according to the presentation.

Taking over ambulance services could cost the city approximately $1,801,700 upfront – a price tag that includes the new ambulances – then $1,336,000 annually, including equipment and salaries. The city could earn an estimated $425,000 in revenue, though staff said that figure is conservative and could be higher, depending on how services are billed. TCFD’s presentation notes that city residents could be billed by “accepting the amount that would be covered by most insurance,” while non-city residents could be billed for the full balance. That could put revenue closer to $800,000, estimates show.

Either scenario would still leave a funding gap of hundreds of thousands of dollars. To cover the gap and fund the expansion, commissioners tonight will consider putting a Headlee override proposal on the ballot November 7. That is a “vote by the electors to return the millage rate to the amount originally authorized by the city charter or statute, or to increase the authorized millage rate by an amount up to the original authorized amount,” according to law firm Miller Canfield. “A Headlee override ballot proposal is a request for a tax increase by x mills for the specified purpose. It can be done in perpetuity (for a charter millage) or limited to a period of years.”

Traverse City’s 15 mill charter tax rate authorization has been rolled back to 11.7688 mills by the Headlee Amendment. Increasing it by 1 mill, which is proposed under the millage request, would generate approximately $1,173,500 for TCFD in 2024. In addition to approving the mill amount, commissioners will also need to decide the number of years for which they want to ask voters to support the increase. According to TCFD’s presentation, the average taxable value in the city is $128,500 for residential properties; that would equate to $10.71 per month under the ballot request.

MPO
Traverse City could join roughly a dozen other municipalities and groups tonight who’ve agreed to participate in the region’s new metropolitan planning organization (MPO). Reaching the population threshold to become an MPO qualifies a region for more federal dollars for road projects and the ability for local governments and agencies to come together on one board to make regional transportation decisions. The Traverse Transportation Coordinating Initiative, an existing regional board, will morph into the new MPO committee.

Grand Traverse County commissioners agreed last week to join the MPO, adding to a list that now includes BATA, Elmwood Township, the Leelanau County Road Commission, East Bay Township, Garfield Township, Green Lake Township, Blair Township, Acme Township, Long Lake Township, the Leelanau County commission, and the Grand Traverse County Road Commission. Peninsula Township will also consider joining the MPO at a meeting Tuesday.

In a memo to commissioners, City Engineer Tim Lodge noted that Traverse City is currently one of “four transportation agencies participating in the Small Urban Program. The Small Urban Program distributes $385,000 annually to the four participating agencies. It is the only method in which the city receives state/federal transportation funding for street improvements.” Lodge noted that every third year, the city receives $338,800, with Grand Traverse County receiving $338,800 in funding the other years. BATA, meanwhile, receives an annual allocation of $46,200, while Leelanau County has “limited eligible routes and has not received funding in recent years,” Lodge said.

Lodge encouraged commissioners to approve joining the MPO, noting it will replace the Small Urban Program and increase funding for projects “by two to three times the current allocation.”