In preparation for the city's upcoming annexations, the Rocky Mount City Council approved five fire protection contracts with rural fire departments that cover the areas to be annexed.
With June 30 set as the day Rocky Mount will officially annex more than 1,600 acres in Nash and Edgecombe counties, the city is obligated to provide fire protection services to these areas.
According to the contracts, Rocky Mount will provide financial compensation for lost tax revenue and fire protection services to rural fire departments.
The contracts will cover a five-year period that will end in 2013.
A yearly sum of $3,990 will be distributed to each of the departments in West Mount, Red Oak, West Edgecombe, Battleboro and Sharpsburg.
The total cost of the service contracts will be $59,462 per year for five years making a total of $297,310.
Rocky Mount will respond to alarm calls in all of the annexed areas along with members of the rural departments.
Rocky Mount Fire Chief Keith Harris said that the city is required by state law to provide the lost compensation to the departments.
Because Rocky Mount will be acquiring areasoutside of its city limits, the areas to be annexed will become part of the city's tax base.
Under annexation laws, municipalities that annex surrounding land must provide services such as fire and police protection to annexed residents.
Harris said that although Rocky Mount fire department and the neighboring rural departments have mutual-aid agreements, the annexation will allow personnel to develop a better working relationship.
"The good side is that it continues to build open relationships between the county and the city," Harris said. "We continue to run with people that we already know."
He also said the city's fire department and the rural departments have been training together in anticipation of the June annexation.
Harris said the ultimate plan is to have an eighth fire station on the west side of Rocky Mount built at the end of the five-year contract to provide increased fire protection to the annexed areas.
According the city's 2009-13 Capital Improvement Program, land acquisition would begin next year for the station with the facility being constructed in 2011 at a cost of more than $1.5 million.
"If the funding is there, that station would be built within the five-year contract expiration," Harris said. "It would help us on the western side of the city."
