County commissioners looking to put Bean Blossom on path to joining Monroe Fire Protection District
In 2019, there were seven fire departments that served different parts of Monroe County. Those seven included the city of Bloomington’s fire department.
As the Monroe Fire Protection District added townships as members, that reduced the number of fire departments in the county to four—Monroe Fire Protection District (MFPD), Bloomington fire department, Ellettsville fire department, and Bean Blossom Township fire department.
By 2026, Bean Blossom Township could be a member of MFPD, which would reduce the number of fire departments operating in Monroe County to just three.
That’s because Monroe County commissioners agreed at their work session this past Wednesday that they would be looking to get the process started under which Bean Blossom could become a member of the MFPD.
In 2020, commissioners kicked off the process for Washington Township and Benton Township by passing a resolution that outlined the procedure for the townships to join the district.
For Bean Blossom Township a similar resolution can be expected to be put in front of the commissioners sometime in the coming weeks, after the township and the MFPD present their plan for the consolidation.
County attorney Jeff Cockerill reported to commissioners at Wednesday’s work session that Bean Blossom Township Trustee Ronald Hutson had approached him to ask about the procedure for joining the MFPD.
Reached by The B Square, Hutson said the township needs to somehow address the challenges it faces trying to staff the all-volunteer department, which is housed at a station in Stinesville.
Hutson said, “We’ve got a problem—we don’t have enough firefighters to run it. They’re all working three jobs.”
Hutson said the options the township had considered were: contracting with Ellettsville fire department, contracting with MFPD, or becoming a member of MFPD. On either option to contract for fire protection, Bean Blossom would have been looking at somewhere around $1 million a year, Hutson told The B Square.
Currently, the township pays about $80,000 a year for fire protection, Hutson said.
To get a ballpark idea of how much more Bean Blossom property owners would pay as members of the MFPD, the Monroe County 2024 budget order is a place to start. The budget order for Bean Blossom shows a property tax rate for fire protection of $0.0715 on an assessed value of $178,013,979—for a total fire levy of $127,280. That includes the cumulative capital fund.
The Monroe Fire Protection District is a local unit of government with its own property tax rate, which has to be applied uniformly across all property in the district. The total Monroe Fire Protection District rate, including the cumulative capital fund, stands at $0.2802, which would generate $498,795 when applied to the Bean Blossom Township total assessed value of $178,013,979.
That means as MFPD members, Bean Blossom taxpayers might be asked to pay in the neighborhood of four times the amount they’re currently paying for fire protection. But that would still be half as much as they would pay, if they contracted for fire protection with Ellettsville or MFPD.
That roughly $500,000 figure can be considered just a ballpark for the portion of the MFPD levy that Bean Blossom would generate. MFPD will almost certainly provide a more detailed breakdown of the anticipated property tax rate that township residents would pay, together with a description of the kind of fire protection service their taxes would buy.
The procedure for past consolidations of townships into MFPD has included public meetings to provide information on the financial impact of becoming a member of the MFPD. The procedure also includes a way for taxpayers to remonstrate against the township joining the Monroe Fire Protection District.
