The Aurora Rural Fire Protection District has relied on volunteer firefighters for over fifty years to respond on all of its emergency calls. We have only one fulltime employee and a part-time Fire Chief. During the daytime hours our volunteer force has diminished while at the same time our calls of service have increased. This is due to the changing environment we live in. In the past many of our volunteers worked in our community, they were local farmers and local business owners. Now many of our farmers have retired and most of our local businesses have moved to larger populations. We now are mostly a bedroom community and most of our volunteers work out of our area. This has created a need for daytime paid firefighters to ease the burden on our volunteer firefighting force.

If this local option tax passes, we will be able to fund a fulltime Fire Chief and two more firefighters to work during the daytime hours when most of the volunteers are away at their jobs. This will give us a safe level of staffing during those daytime hours. This will also make the response times faster during the peak hours of the day and that will increase safety throughout our entire Fire District. It will also allow us to expand our pre-fire planning, and fire education programs, which will also increase the safety within our Fire District.

Our present combined tax rate is the lowest of all Marion County Fire Districts. With the addition of this option tax our combined tax rate will still be below the average tax rate of all Marion County Fire Districts.

Submitted by,

Fred W. Netter

Aurora Rural Fire Protection District