MARSHALL — Members of the Marshall City Council approved a fire services agreement with surrounding townships for the next year – but first, they asked Marshall Fire Chief Quentin Brunsvold for a little more information on how the agreement worked.

“I think for the public, I’d like to have a little more input,” said council member James Lozinski.

The 2024-25 township fire services agreement with the Marshall Fire Department was part of the city council’s consent agenda on Tuesday. Council members pulled the agreement out of the consent agenda, in order to ask questions and have further discussion about it.

Brunsvold said the formulas that went into the fire service agreement were complex, and would be hard to explain in detail during the council meeting.

“But for example, we do contract with all the townships per section,” Brunsvold said. There are equations used for the agreement, that calculate what the per-section fire service cost is going to be, he said.

“This has been in the works for the past 12, 13 years,” Brunsvold said of the rate formulas.

“The contract sizes used to be about $150, $200 an acre, 10 to 12 years ago,” Brunsvold said. “And because of that and rising costs, that was never covering any expenses. So, it was decided at that time that we needed to redo how this was all going about. So the formula was calculated. It’s been calculated the same way over the past 10 years, we have not deviated from this equation.”

Brunsvold said the increasing cost of fire services had raised concerns from area townships. “I don’t remember the exact figure for this year, but it was over $1,000 per section this year, versus 12 years ago it was $150-ish, $200,” he said.

Agenda packet materials for Tuesday’s council meeting said the 2024-25 fire services agreement would have a fiscal impact of $127,604.45 in compensation for the city of Marshall.

The agenda packet also broke down that cost to individual townships receiving fire services from Marshall. Compensation from Clifton Township would be about $24,800. Compensation from Fairview Township would be about $23,600. Compensation from Lake Marshall Township would be about $29,500. Compensation from Lynd Township would be about $12,400. Compensation from Sodus Township would be about $25,400, and compensation from Stanley Township would be about $11,700.

Lozinski asked if the cost of a new aerial truck for the Marshall Fire Department would be reflected in the fire service agreement.

“This really has nothing to do with the aerial. That’s going to be a cost on the taxpayers,” Brunsvold said. The aerial truck would likely not be used for rural fire calls, because it would be difficult to get enough water for it to work effectively, he said. “The instance that we would use it would be likely a technical rescue in a grain bin, or something like that . . . the fee schedule does factor for that cost to be billed out on a per-use basis, which we would do like we would for a fire call or anything else like that.”

“The township contracts really go to the administration of the (fire) department as a whole, into new equipment, and things like that,” Brunsvold said.

Brunsvold said the Marshall Fire Department does have equipment that is specifically dedicated for rural fire calls and rescue calls, like a fire engine with a 1,250-gallon per minute pump, and a 3,500 gallon tanker truck. The MFD also has two pickup trucks with skid units for responding to grass fires, and two utility vehicles with skid units.

“I think it’s good for the public to hear how this works,” Lozinski said.