Letter to the editor: Regrets necessity of cuts

I am sorry the decision had to be made to cut Medicine Bow Fire Department from the County Fire payroll.

It is not the only entity or municipal fire department that will experience the effects of a state assessment that is down over $100 million dollars resulting in $8 million that had to be cut from Carbon County’s upcoming budget.

The County departments were asked to resubmit their budgets to 2010 levels which eliminated some excess and from there we went through line by line reducing expense even more

Some of this reduction included cutting and/or eliminating outside agency requests, cutting all capital equipment requests, which included fire and law enforcement equipment.

We increased the County employees’ health insurance deductible resulting in a reduction of that expense by $340,000.

Open positions will not be filled. If the financial picture worsens, our only option is reduction in staff.

Carbon County Fire Department has stations in Rawlins, Hanna, McFadden, Muddy Gap, and Ryan Park. John Rutherford, County Fire Warden, is a professional fireman who works fulltime for the City of Rawlins and part time for Carbon County. The County Commission has put their trust in Mr. Rutherford to manage the County Fire Department to the level that best serves the entire county. This department runs on a $200,000 budget, which is not adequate but all that can be achieved at this time. Mr. Rutherford knows where he can best cut expenses and also the best utilization of equipment and manpower.

Calls outside of Medicine Bow will be covered by County fire stations and County crews in Hanna and McFadden. Medicine Bow is concerned about loss of calls to the immediate area outside their town limits; however, they themselves have stated that at times they were unable to attend to these calls due to a lack of firefighters. Their fire chief also stated the County truck was inadequate so they used the Medicine Bow truck instead. If Medicine Bow wants to be available for calls outside their town limits, the Town Council only needs to sign the Annual Operation Plan (AOP), which allows them to be called out on county fires using their equipment and manpower and they will be compensated for their service.

Finally, Medicine Bow is not left out nor forgotten by Carbon County. The Town of Medicine Bow does not have a police officer so law enforcement calls are handled by the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office. Carbon County Road and Bridge has a shop and personnel located in Medicine Bow. Phil Cook works very hard to keep County roads in that area open and in good repair. Medicine Bow has a Senior Center which is housed in a County owned and maintained building. The services provided by the Senior Center are also partially funded by Carbon County. Medicine Bow Health Center is the only medical clinic still partially funded by Carbon County. There are three others in Saratoga, Baggs, and Hanna that receive no county funding. It may seem that you are left out and forgotten in Medicine Bow but that is far from the truth. You are an important part of our county.

I would hope that financial times get better in Carbon County. The Carbon County Commission has been forced to make some tough decisions and it would be nice in the very near future to be able to purchase the capital equipment needed for the fire department, repair our aging buildings, and a myriad of other things that need to be done. On a positive note this financial shortfall has opened our eyes to the areas that can be cut back and will, hopefully, make us more efficient in County government so that we can offer quality services to our citizens with little or no waste.

Sincerely,

Sue Jones,

Carbon County Commissioner