MARSHFIELD, WI (WSAU-WAOW) — Marshfield Fire Department has never charged for their services before, but starting next year that’s going to change.
Starting January 1st, Marshfield fire and rescue will be charging for their response services, a decision that was not made easily.
“It was an idea I struggled with initially, and I still struggle with it to be honest with you.” said Fire Chief Pete Fletty.
“This was the hardest decision we’ve ever made, they hated making this decision.” said Alder Ed Wagner.
Those include fire inspections, false alarms, car crashes, fires, and vehicle extrication.
They said charges will be determined on a case-by-case basis, for example, a car crash requiring passenger extraction could cost you up to $1,000 depending on the situation. For fire inspections, they won’t charge you unless they have to come back a third or fourth time.
It’s all to address growing budget issues and a lack of state funding, and keep up with inflation, city leaders said they had no choice.
“It was necessary that we looked for other streams of revenue.” said Wagner, “they did everything they could to try to get around it and so far we haven’t.”
Marshfield fire said they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel as it is, and they just want to be able to provide the quality of service their community deserves.
“Call volume is up 18% this year alone, and that’s expected to continue to rise, like I said we just lost three staff, so we are at bare bones here right now.” said Fletty. “It’s so that we can continue to provide the service that our public deserves and that we should be providing.”
