Let’s talk about the proposed 38.6 million dollar budget

So let’s talk about wants illegal, immoral, unethical and irresponsible about this proposed 38.6 million dollar budget for Lehigh Acres Fire District.

Administrative Salary 7% Wage increase Plus one new Assistant Chief – They got a raise last year and already the dept is top heavy with to many chiefs and no one knows their job duties. And most of the chiefs live outside of the Lehigh Acres Fire District.

Firefighter/ EMS personnel will receive a 4% increase in pay per their contract but Chief Adams wants to give them a additional 10%, didn’t the Firefighter/ EMS personnel get a double digit increase last year? – I have no problem paying for our Firefighter/ EMS personnel but paying double-digit payroll increases is not expectable practice.

Overtime --- Should not be use for training, overtime be use as a means of last resort only! Major emergency or etc. in the proposed budget a quarter of a million is set-aside in overtime but most for training. Training should be a different line item in the budget.

Legal Fees – The adopted budget for 2005/2006 was $50,000, NOW the proposed 2006/2007 budgeted item is $200,000 ---

Medical Director – The adopted budget for 2005/2006 was $35,000 NOW $60,000 for a part-time job. The medical director works for Lehigh Regional Hospital full-time

Land Taxes – The district pays $1,500 in land taxes why the district is a government agency, and government agencies do not pay land taxes.

Communications – Current the board has agreements with 6 different communication companies WHY? Cingular, Embarq, Liberty, Comcast, Nextel and 800mhz user fees

Rental space for offices – The Chief wants to move all Administrative to one location this year at the cost in this budget at $200,000 WHY again, My question were is responsibility to the people we need to build fire station first, then build the Administration second that’s how it should work.

Equipment – We current have six fire engines 200, 210, 220, 230, 240 and 250 but current engine 200 sits outside rotting away and the only thing wrong is main water pump for the water tank it will not keep up the presser needed for a first response vehicle – so lets get fixed, the board states No were put in the budget for a new half a million dollar engine.

Also our crash engine 707 needs $16,000 in repairs but are board again states NO, why you ask they are planning to retire the crash engine and buy two more.

Contract on the Districts Computer hardware --- We have a $40,000 a year contract for computer for hardware support – This contract needs to be revaluated on a yearly needs and cost basics.

Administrative office expense – From $10,500 to 26,700 a 180% increase Why? But office supplies, which are a different account, only want up $5,000 dollars.

GAS/ OIL -- The adopted budget for 2005/2006 was $100,000, NOW the proposed 2006/2007 budgeted item is $200,000 --- we need to go out and find other companies to bid on our GAS and Oil needs on a yearly basics.

New Bay on Station #3 (Gunnery) -- Half a million dollars in this proposed budget to expand station #3 but there is no land on the on the stations bay side to expand?

Computers --- The adopted budget for 2005/2006 was $8,500, NOW the proposed 2006/2007 budgeted item is $140,300 – I believe the district should go out to bid to save the taxpayers money.

Reserves -- The adopted budget for 2005/2006 was $1,369,828, NOW the proposed 2006/2007 budgeted item is $10,065,422 -------- BAD management and not responsible or accountable to the people of Lehigh Acres ---- but a reserve of under 3.2 million would be both responsible or accountable to the people of Lehigh Acres and this fire district.

Fire board has wasted money

To The Editor,

The water wars are starting in Lehigh Acres … the current fire board would not listen to the citizens of Lehigh Acres months ago. Do you know how much money the board has wasted on water engineers and wasted time delays? All of these delays cost taxpayers MONEY! Wake up members of the board and start thinking outside the box and stop gambling on something that this board does not understand.The current fireboard needs to read the Lee Plan (at Lee County’s website) and the Florida statues that deal with Water and Sewer. An education on the water and sewer laws would enlighten the them all.

Robert Anderson
Lehigh Acres Watchdog
Lehigh Acres

Allowing civilians on fire truck is wrong

To the Editor,

What right does Commissioner Steve Haas have to take a Lehigh Acres brand new fire truck on joy rides with civilians on board. He gave civilians a ride on the fire truck at a town hall meeting, in which nine people showed up, on Saturday, Aug. 13.I don’t doubt he is capable of operating the type of vehicle in North Fort Myers. Does this mean any commissioner can just jump into a vehicle and joy ride? Was this vehicle in service and was it insured to have civilians riding on it?What if one of those on the joy ride was injured, God forbid. If they had been broadsided on Joel Blvd., who would pay the bills? It was really a dumb move on his part. Remember November is not far away and we the taxpayers can take back control of our fire department.

H.R. Doidge
Lehigh Acres

Here we go again!!!! ---- Raises sought for Lehigh fire officials

You can read the story at --- Click here

Excerpt form News Press story ----

Raises sought for Lehigh fire officials
District looks to spend 36 percent more next year

"We're gonna set the benchmark. We want to be the Metro-Dade of the west coast," Haas said. "Lehigh's gonna be another Fort Lauderdale in 10 years."


Four of the five commissioners are firefighters in other districts, and three belong to the same union as Lehigh firefighters.

"They're just spreading money like it's water," Harold Doidge, 71, said. "This is taxpayers' money."

He said the board needs more civilians. "It's just out of hand," Doidge said.

Last year commissioners came under criticism for approving raises of up to 26 percent for administrative staff.

This year, Chief Don Adams wants to give the administration an across-the-board 7 percent raise and add a new assistant chief to head up the administration for a starting salary of $104,000.

Water lacking for planned Lehigh fire station

excrept for News Press story... By Justin St. Clair

Originally posted on August 17, 2006

Click on Headline to read the full story .........

Commissioners decided in June to look into digging a well for the station, but construction managers told them at their Wednesday meeting that a well wouldn't provide enough water to meet state standards.

"We're gambling on a $2.5 million fire station and a $500,000 water line that we don't even know we're going to be able to use?" Commissioner Jeff Berndt asked the board's attorney and the construction managers, engineers and architect that laid out the board's options. "I can1t put into words the level of disappointment that has been dropped into my lap"

John Pfisterer, a project manager for Fowler Construction, said his company
found that it would be much more expensive to build the kind of well needed
to supply enough water for the station.

Richard Pringle, the fire board's attorney, said the district must push for
an agreement with the Florida Governmental Utility Authority to supply
enough water for the station if the line is installed.

Being responsible and accountable............

Being responsible and accountable to the needs of the people of the Lehigh Acres fire district should be the way of the future for its fire board. The district is in the customer service business.

But this current fire board, with four fire fighters on it, is just about to make a 38.6 million dollar mistake that will have repercussions for years to come for your children and their children.

Most people in Lehigh Acres would agree that firefighters did an excellent job protecting our homes and lives, especially during the fire this last April; but by just looking at this budget and the questionable items in it, and the lack of prevention items needed, it would be very easy to cut 7-10 million dollars and still have one of the most effective fire departments in the county.

The current board is still borrowing 8 million dollars to build two new stations at the cost of 5.8 million for both; why do we need the extra 2.2 million that we, the citizens, must pay back?

Chief Adams has a line item in the budget called contingencies for $515,000, and almost all budgeted accounts have some form of a miscellaneous line item in them, with a grand total over $20,000 in this budget.

So between the so-called reserved fund and contingency fund, plus miscellaneous line items, we have over 10.6 million dollars of possible cuts that can be made in this budget. Most accountants believe there should never be a miscellaneous line item, and all items must be accounted for somewhere.

I’m willing to support, as a candidate, a reserve fund - but keep it responsible and accountable to the needs and not the wants of the future. I believe a reserve of 2.2 to 3.1 million would be acceptable to staff and the taxpayers of Lehigh Acres in case of a major destruction and not the $10,065,422.00 million that is in the proposed operational budget for 2006-2007. This board needs to lower contingency and miscellaneous fund items to a minimumally acceptable level. I also believe that staff should file for grants every 45 to 60 days to save the taxpayers’ money; this department has only received one true grant in the last five years.

I had the opportunity to talk to Chief Adams this last Saturday. We also have agreed to meet again to talk about the budget needs of the district. The chief told me the 10 million dollar plus in reserves is the 8 million dollar loan and the future impact fee money.

If this true, then why isn’t the budget written like that? It just shows it as reserves!

My question still stands --- does this administration really know how to do a budget?
Recently, I attended the first of two fire department budget workshops and the Chairman’s Town Hall meeting, continually hearing the same thing - “we want this” for the future. What about the needs of the district? What about being responsible and accountable to the needs of the people of the fire district? Where is the current five year plan (the last plan was done in 2001 and update in 2003), a ten year plan and a long term 20 year plan for the district? With these plans you can layout the needs and not the wants for the future.

Is this budget responsible and accountable to the people of this district at 38.6 million dollars this next fiscal year? Or is it just a smoke and mirror game?