Tight budgets, bureaucracy frustrate rural fire departments | News

East of Denver, across Colorado’s Great Plains into Kansas, Interstate 70 unspools across miles of flat, open prairie like a numbing ribbon of asphalt.

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Here the horizon rests on a promise — that services will come to the rescue in case of an accident or health emergency. But, increasingly, the responders are relying more and more on a prayer.

In the tiny unincorporated town of Agate, located 70 miles east of Denver in northeastern Elbert County, Larry Rector fidgets with his phone in the conference room of his station. Not mincing words, the tall and blunt fire chief said he’s worried about the future of his small volunteer fire department and the 580 residents it serves.

Rector, along with his crew of 19 — some volunteers, some part-time — provides fire and emergency services across the 377-square-mile Agate Fire Protection District and a busy section of I-70.

In metro areas like Denver, paramedics and EMTs are trained to stabilize patients for an average of 10 to 15 minutes, thanks to the proximity of hospitals and trauma centers. But rural paramedics, like Kristina Nowak with the Agate Fire Protection District, often have to stretch that miracle, sustaining patient lives for up to an hour before she and her volunteer ambulance crew can reach the nearest medical facility.

But Nowak’s story is nothing new — for residents who live east of Gun Club Road.

Across the eastern plains of Colorado — as well as rural expanses across the nation — rural fire departments and the vital emergency medical services they provide are on life support.

Dwindling volunteers, ballooning bureaucracy and patchwork funding all put lives and property at risk in some of the state’s most vulnerable communities.

Rural fire chiefs have repeatedly expressed their pleas to state and federal officials for more help. But those calls to action seem to have fallen on deaf ears, they said. 

“I don’t know how to get their attention,” Rector said. “I don’t think they understand just how bad off we are out here — it seems like we’re just hanging on by our fingernails. The call volume is going up, and the volunteers are going down.”

And budgets are drying up.

“We don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to hang on,” he said.

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Where are all the volunteers?

Decades ago, being a volunteer firefighter was a right of passage in many rural communities. Passed down through generations as a way of life, the volunteers serve as the first line of defense in all kinds of emergencies.

Farmers, teachers and able-bodied residents all come running when the fire bell rings.

Of the total 29,452 fire departments in the country, 18,873 are all-volunteer; 5,335 are mostly volunteer; 2,459 are mostly career; and 2,785 are all-career, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council.

While the number of volunteer firefighters continues to dwindle, the call volume for their services has more than tripled in the past 35 years — largely due to the increased number of medical calls.

Nestled 45 miles east of Denver, the town of Elizabeth has grown substantially over the past decade. Its rolling hills and slower pace of life attract those who want the solace of the county with the nearby convenience of a major metropolitan area.

“About 80% of our call load is for emergency medical service,” Elizabeth Fire Protection District Chief T.J. Steck told The Denver Gazette.

In the last three to four years, Elizabeth, Elbert County’s most populous town, has seen a 75% increase in Medicare users.

“That tells us a couple of things,” Steck said. “First of all, our community’s aging, obviously, but we thought our aging community might retire and go somewhere else because of the cost of living, but they’re not. They’re staying here and so demands for service are increasing.”

While older volunteers are dedicated, Steck said rural fire departments are losing more members because of family commitments or because they simply can’t do the job anymore.

“It seems like the younger generation just doesn’t want to volunteer,” said Rector, who pointed out that the average age of personnel in his fire department is 44. “It’s hard to keep younger ones here. Years ago, we were agriculture-based here, so we were always around. And the young ones, now, are growing up, and they’re moving away, and they’re not coming back.”

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‘Nobody’s stepping up to the plate anymore’

For Steck and other rural fire chiefs, recruitment is less of a challenge than retention.

“Simply put, part-time and full-time firefighters (in rural areas) are making salaries equal to some of the fast food chains,” Steck said. “Firefighters in my district can step across the county line to the west and get a pay bump of close to $20,000 per year.”

Home to one of eastern Colorado’s few Level IV trauma centers, the residents of Hugo — as well as those traveling a 30-mile section of Highway 40/287 and a 10-mile section of I-70 — rely heavily on the town’s all-volunteer fire department.

The fire station, located in a well-maintained but outdated metal building on Fifth Street, remains unstaffed until an emergency arises.

Then, volunteers drive in, suit up and roll out.

“You know, the idea of being a volunteer is not really high on anybody’s priority list,” said Hugo Fire Chief Jess Solze. “Maybe it’s because of the cost of living, and maybe they’re holding down two or three jobs. I understand that, but the volunteer fire service is slowly going away, and it’s not just a Colorado thing, it’s a United States thing.”

“Nobody’s stepping up to the plate anymore,” Solze said. 

Increased time commitments, higher training standards and new federal requirements — on top of difficulties coordinating time off from employers to respond to calls — discourage many would-be volunteers.

In order to encourage more volunteers to become EMTs and paramedics, Solze said his department now offers a $50-per-run stipend.

However, the waves of volunteers ebb and flow as life priorities change.

“Maybe they have a baby, you know. Now their family is way more important than being able to run a call,” Solze said.

To help expand department response, Solze reached out to local farmers and ranchers who live outside the town’s boundaries. By permitting them to take gear and radios home and respond with their own vehicle, Solze said they can often be on-scene before emergency equipment arrives and relay valuable information to incoming crews.

But without new volunteers and sustainable funding, many rural departments see the end of the line approaching.

Solze estimates that, without an infusion of new volunteers, his department probably has a shelf-life of 20-25 years.

“I don’t think we have that much time,” Rector said. “I mean, there are departments out there that now, we don’t know if they’ll survive another couple of years.”

Should the Agate Fire Department have to replace one of their trucks and pay for it out of pocket, “that would be it,” Nowak said. “We’d be done.”

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Rural fire departments are ‘rapidly approaching a tipping point’

Rural fire chiefs agree that keeping the doors open and trucks rolling has become increasingly difficult, and departments have to be creative and efficient to keep the money flowing.

In Colorado, a majority of fire departments (67%) are funded through property tax, according to a 2023 report from the state Division of Fire Prevention and Control. Shifts in property tax revenue could compromise a department’s ability to provide essential services to residents.

In rural areas, there are few houses, and large swaths of land are primarily zoned for agricultural use.

Speaking before the Colorado Wildfire Matters Review Committee, Elizabeth Chief  Steck called the outlook for rural fire departments “bleak” and “rapidly approaching a tipping point.”

“The problem with areas out in the eastern Colorado area is they’re not growing,” he told committee members. “So, they’re not getting the additional tax revenue that would allow them to look at hiring people or having full-time staff to make sure that they have a minimal response, but they don’t have the money to do it.”

Along with spaghetti dinners, bake sales, and pie auctions, more-and-more volunteer departments are asking for help from the community to meet their most basic needs, resorting to QR codes and online donation payment options on websites and social media.

Many also offer online payment for those paying off ambulance bills.

Other donations come from other firefighters.

Metro area fire departments that donate surplus firefighting equipment become lifelines for rural departments, enabling them to secure working equipment in fairly new condition.

“And when I say fairly new, I mean 30 years old,” explained Solze.

Solze noted that networking with larger departments has been crucial for the Hugo Fire Department’s equipment acquisition, as nearly all of their trucks were donated by other agencies.

“As they’re cycling out old trucks, they’ll usually call us and say, ‘Hey, could you use this?’” he said. “One of my engines was donated by Fort Lupton Fire, and we got it about three years ago. Another was donated by Clifton Fire on the Western slope by Grand Junction, and another from Loveland.”

Hugo Fire acknowledges donors by marking each truck with the name of the gifting fire department.

For everything else, grants end up being the default stopgap.

While grants, according to the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, make up only about 5% of the total revenue for fire departments statewide, they provide a critical funding stream.

Several competitive federal and state grants are available; award amounts vary, and fire districts must reapply annually.

Although helpful, chiefs said grants are not a sustainable way to fund critical emergency services, especially as call volume and equipment prices rise.

In a letter to state lawmakers in September, Gov. Jared Polis acknowledged that statewide call volume has surged by 43% in the past decade and that many smaller fire districts shoulder the majority of wildfire response, and, without a reliable revenue stream, they will struggle to meet growing public safety needs.

Although a donated fire truck may save a department upwards of $500,000, it doesn’t come with fuel, maintenance, insurance, tires, and repairs — all of which must be absorbed by the new owner.

But property tax issues remain a sore point.

For Agate, one of its biggest resource drains is I-70, which runs east and west through the 377-square-mile district. With no gas stations or other commercial operations in the town itself, the department relies primarily on low-value residential property tax for most of its funding.

Rector estimates that close to 70% of emergency calls his department handles are connected to the highway in one way or another — mostly for vehicle crashes.

But “I-70 doesn’t pay taxes” to the town of Agate, and that’s a problem for Rector.

While the interstate runs through the Agate Fire Protection District, Rector said it is not obligated by law to respond.

They do so because it’s “the right thing to do,” he said. 

Doing the “right thing” gets expensive, as services like ambulance transports often cost the department more than it receives in reimbursement.

Once a patient is transported and dropped off at a medical facility, Nowak said the race for reimbursement dollars begins.

Many crash victims carry the minimum medical coverage required by law in Colorado for auto insurance, which is $5,000.

So, if a patient is transported from Agate to Denver, and the hospital submits its billing information first — often before Nowak and her crew can return — the insurance coverage can quickly be depleted.

“So, if we are delayed in getting that bill in, we just lose out,” she said.

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Rector estimates reimbursement paperwork challenges have cost his department approximately $50,000 in lost revenue.

Recent state efforts to lower property taxes amid skyrocketing valuations can mean cuts to critical revenue streams to these fire districts, officials said, adding that predictable and sustainable funding is what will make a difference.

Shortly after the conclusion of this summer’s August special legislative session, Gov. Polis signed House Bill 24B-1001 into law, which cuts residential and commercial property tax rates, caps revenue growth, and extends through 2025 the state “backfill” to local governments that see cuts in revenue. The new law allow local voters to override the local government revenue cap and school districts to override the cap at the state-wide level

The new law resulted from a deal with proponents of two propositions, who argued the ballot measures — ultimately withdrawn as part of the compromise — were necessary because lawmakers and the governor have failed to provide sufficient, meaningful relief to Coloradans facing massive property tax hikes, as high as 50% in some counties.

Others have argued that Colorado’s problem is not a lack of revenue for operations but, rather, the explosive growth in government spending, continually funding programs without critically assessing their effectiveness, and overregulation that suffocates business initiatives, which, in turns, depresses tax revenue. 

These critics have acknowledged that the woes in rural Colorado are markedly different than the situation in urban centers.  

“During the special session, fire districts across our state raised concerns about fire protection funding from property taxes,” Polis wrote. “Based on data from the Colorado State Fire Chiefs, there are fire districts in our state facing significant revenue shortfalls.”

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‘We will quit running on I-70’

The Hanover Fire District covers approximately 320 square miles, including the southern and eastern end of El Paso County and parts of the north-central Pueblo County.

With three modest stations and a $1.2 million mill levy budget, Hanover Fire Protection District Chief Carl Tatum has a keen interest in local property tax values.

While current tax models work best up-and-down the Front Range, he said, they “absolutely don’t work in rural Colorado.”

“We are not seeing the growth or the increase in home prices,” Tatum said. “In rural Colorado, we see a lot more State Land Board (land), federal land, and other government entities that do not pay property taxes, but we’re (still) required to provide (fire and emergency) service.”

Tatum expressed extreme frustration with the legislature and the governor’s office.

“They have overruled local elections — lowered TABOR calculations, and required local governments to hold elections to de-TABOR questions or the floating mill rate,” he said. “The savings that legislators are bragging about to homeowners are not valid. They do not account for developers creating metro districts or other bonds that have been locally approved.”

Tatum estimates that in 2026, his district will see a $250,000 loss in its current budget.

In the letter, Polis directed the Office of State Planning and Budget (OSPB), the Department of Public Safety (CDPS) and other agencies to collaborate with the fire chiefs and other stakeholders to develop “creative budget solutions” for the at-risk fire protection districts.

The governor wants those recommendations delivered to his office and to the fire chiefs no later than March 1, 2025.

However, should the state not find creative budget solutions, tough decisions are inevitable, rural officials said.

“We have a fallback plan if our money gets tight,” Rector said. “We will quit running on I-70 and just offer services for our taxpayers, our community, and the people who are supporting the fire department — that would cut our cost in half.”

Should that happen, neighboring fire districts may be asked to shoulder that burden, which would mean increased response times and also straining their resources.

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Ballooning bureaucracy and paperwork add layers of burden

Doing more with less is no longer just a philosophy for rural fire and EMS.

It becomes a standard operating procedure.

“We’re trying to live off the grants, and the grants are getting harder to get a hold of, and funding for some is being cut,” said Rector, who explained the increasing levels of paperwork, required even to apply have become a cumbersome and frustrating numbers game.

For example, Colorado offers a Volunteer Fire Assistance Grant.

A 2023 competitive grants worksheet published by the state indicates fire departments serving a rural area or rural community with a population of 10,000 or less are eligible to apply, and preference is given to those departments with a workforce comprised of 80% volunteer firefighters.

Grant awards may be used for for community projects, supplies, equipment purchase, training, and supplemental purchases of donated engines from the U.S. Forest Service.

Along with list of federal compliance requirements, the VFA grant requires a 50% cost match, that must be available at the time of application.

The matching funds, certificates and stipulated numbers of training hours, as well as a minimum of certified people, are among the criteria that, if not met, make it difficult to advance to the next round in many grant programs, Rector said.

He said federal grant programs tend to be the most difficult.

“The state recently tried to get us gear like wildland gear and bunker gear, and they have actually made some strides in helping us out, Rector said. “But the higher-ups, I don’t think, understand that, yes, the gear is welcome, but we have to be able to put people in that gear.”

Even for larger rural fire departments like La Junta, a fully-staffed department located in southeastern Colorado, the administrative element is a challenge.

La Junta Fire Chief Brad Davidson said it often takes two-to-four additional people to work on a single grant.

“When a grant comes out, and a department puts in for that grant, to me, they’re needing that piece of equipment for a reason, and sooner rather than later,” he explained. “Sometimes, you you start the grant process in January, and depending what grant it is, you don’t hear until October or December, but then you have to have the money spent within a month on the piece of equipment that you’re trying to get.”

Vendor backlogs complicate grants purchases, as well.

Some vendors have waiting lists of up to two years, and by the time a department actually gets the piece of equipment, the price may have increased drastically.

And it’s not just grant paperwork.

Inside the city’s municipal building, 29 La Junta firefighters have already handled more than 2,100 calls this year — 91% of which were for emergency medical services.

For each medical run, there is a long and daunting trail of paperwork necessary to document the event, the treatment and show eligibility for payment from insurance providers, including Medicare.

“It’s (the paperwork) hard when you only have four guys on duty to run 12 calls in a 24-hour period,” Davidson said as he leaned back in his office chair. “And then you expect them to do daily maintenance on vehicles and paperwork, paperwork, and because the insurance companies require reports just so we can get payment, it will take an average from an hour to an hour and 45 minutes just to complete a report.”

And like other departments, Davidson said the cost to operate an ambulance service doesn’t always see the best return on investment.

In La Junta, where they are lucky to have a regional hospital, Davidson said for his agency to send an ambulance with a crew of two out the door to an in-town call, the billing would be about $1,400.

“So, by the time we do the paperwork, get it submitted and come back, we’re lucky sometimes to get $600 to $700, which is the insurance reimbursement portion and does not include wages or state-mandated supplies that must be carried on every ambulance,” he said.

What’s not covered by insurance is billed to the patient and, in some cases, turned over to a third-party collection agency.

“A lot of times, people refuse to answer phones, mail, things like that,” said Davidson of the collections process. “But once in a great while, we will have that one citizen who will walk in the door and say, ‘I can pay you $20 a month,’ and I’ll tell them, ‘You make that payment every month. We’ll work with you.’”

“If we had an additional $850,000 a year coming from the state, or something like that, on top of what we get now, it would really be very beneficial,” he said.

Like other rural fire chiefs, Davidson said if he had one wish it would be for increased revenue to hire more full-time people.

“Our call volume has increased 30 to 40% over the last five years, and that ranges from a little bit of everything,” Davidson said. “Majority of it is medical, but with the call increase and volunteerism across not only the state of Colorado but the United States declining, it’s just not sustainable.”