Fire figures
A short list of town populations and their fire and rescue budgets. With receipts.
Photo by Robert Coleburn
Some Vermont fire and rescue budgets, for your reading pleasure
Chea Waters Evans
(In case you missed it: The reason this came up in the first place is that Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue requested $1,069,586 for their budget for FY 22/23. This year, the budget was $933,246.)
There’s disparity in local fire and rescue department budgets, which makes sense. Not only are no two towns alike, the people who live in those towns make choices when they vote and pay their taxes about what they want to spend their money on, and when. Comparing the budgets of various fire and rescue organizations, then, is especially tricky. How many full-time employees are there? How much do they rely on volunteers? What’s the town’s population? Do they service other towns, or contract with other towns to provide service to them? Do the residents of a particular town want control of their own fire and rescue services, or do they want to rely on other area departments?
The following list doesn’t get into those specifics, nor does it clarify which town pays for its fire hydrants out of a separate town department’s budget, or which town doesn’t have fire hydrants at all, or which fire and rescue departments provide 24/7 service, or which ones are regularly out of service, or which provides full ambulance service or contracts with another town.
This is simply a list of town populations and their fire and rescue budgets. If you click on the name of the town, it will take you directly to the town report where I got the numbers for FY 2020-2021. No need to keep you in suspense any longer…here are the figures from 2021. The population figures are from the Vermont Department of Health’s 2019 estimates.
Population: 3,785
Fire and rescue budget: $876,343
Population: 3,842
Fire and rescue budget: $336,295
Population: 2,690
Fire and rescue budget: $228,461
Population: 4,525
Fire and rescue budget: $529,373
Population: 3,409
Fire and rescue budget: $440,497
Population: 4,119
Fire and rescue budget: $412,707
Population: 7,647
Fire and rescue budget: $683, 366
Population: 2,583
Fire and rescue budget: $326,477
Population: 10,081
Fire and rescue budget: $2,235,560
Thank you for this article. This is quite shocking and would be important to understand what is it that requires Charlotte to have $235/per capita vs. $87 for Bristol, $85 for Ferrisburgh, $117 for Hinesburg, $90 for Shelburne, etc., etc.???? I do hope that there is a good explanation....