JASPER, Tenn. - Marion County Commissioner Tommy Thompson has been pushing for years to increase the county's financial support to its rural volunteer fire departments.
This week, he got his wish.
At its August meeting, the Marion County Commission voted unanimously to boost the total funding by nearly $28,400 across all 13 departments.
The board's emergency services committee and its finance committee recommended approval of the additional funds.
In the mid-1990s, the board voted to fund the county's rural volunteer fire departments and its rescue squad.
The base pay for each fire department was set at $3,000 annually, and then $13.92 per household covered was added to that money for individual departments.
"That's still the case today, except now the base pay is $7,000," County Mayor David Jackson said.
The number of houses each fire department covers was last counted in 2003.
"It was done manually by a couple of fire chiefs back at that time," Jackson said.
Marion enlisted the aid of the Southeast Tennessee Development District to perform a recount of those houses recently.
"There is some increased money here that is due the fire departments because of an increase in homes," Jackson said.
There were 7,460 homes covered by the county's rural volunteer fire departments in 2003. That number has climbed to 8,621 in 2015.
Jackson said there was a slight decrease in covered homes in the Suck Creek Mountain, Mullins Cove and Haletown areas.
Jasper annexed parts of an area last year that Haletown's fire department once covered, which he said took some houses out of that department's coverage area.
Officials said the county rescue squad's base funding will increase from $10,000 to $15,000, too.
"Those guys provide a valuable service, also," Commission Chairman Gene Hargis said.
Thompson said he wanted to thank Jackson publicly for his work on rectifying the funding issue.
"We've been kicking this around for a few years now, and it looks to me like a pretty fair deal for everybody," he said. "You're not going to satisfy 100 percent, but it looks to me like it's done as fair as you can do it."
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.