Did you know that, for every dollar of home value, Tyrone homeowners pay more in property tax than any other homeowners in the county? We pay a fire service tax to the county that our neighbors in Peachtree City and Fayetteville don’t. They use municipal fire services, not county services. The amount we pay in fire service tax alone is more than we pay into the town treasury that covers our roads, our parks and library, even our police.
We have an arrangement for Fayette County to provide us with fire protection. This service is effective, but also expensive, especially for us. Think on this: The Fayette County fire service budget is $11 million. Our town intake from property tax is in the ballpark of $5 million. And the county Fire Service collects more of our property tax then our town. The math is pretty simple.
Fayette County’s fire service is designed to cover the parts of the county which have little to no infrastructure. But Tyrone has an infrastructure which has been growing and maturing. A fire service designed around the town would be able to take advantage of our improving roads and water service. Towns like Tyrone with municipal fire service have been known to satisfy their protection needs for $1 to $1.5 million dollars. This is far less than what we are currently paying to the county.
There are a few ways to go about this. Maybe the town could purchase a single fire station and a couple of trucks from the county. Or maybe we could contract with a third party professional service, as other cities have been known to do. Either way, this is an idea which we as a town should explore. It’s time to get the right fire service for Tyrone.