Mayor Moore delves into planned expenditures for fire, police departments
top photo/Firefighters Local 396
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(Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles detailing planned expenditures by the City of Kokomo as detailed in its proposed budget for 2025.)
The Kokomo Common Council will take a final vote on the City of Kokomo’s 2025 budget this month. While citizens might not feel the impact of every planned expenditure, there are several changes and projects that are worth noting.
From emergency vehicle purchases to park improvements to property demolitions, the administration of Mayor Tyler Moore will alter the city landscape if all goes to plan. Given the size of the budget – more than $125 million – there are plenty of ways in which that will happen.
Mayor Moore sat with the Kokomo Lantern recently to discuss some of the budget highlights. They will be detailed in a series of stories, starting with the changes being made in terms of public safety.
Police and fire department staffing has been a top priority for the Moore administration from his start in 2020. Retirements following more than a decade of hiring freezes placed a significant burden on both departments, and to date, the city has not been able to staff as fully as it had hoped.
Moore addressed part of the problem contractually, awarding significant wage increases to police officers and firefighters. Those hikes continue in the 2025 budget. Police officers should expect a 3.4 percent raise next year, while firefighters are in line for a jump of more than eight percent.
photo/Kokomo Police Department
With those bumps, a starting police officer will earn $56,312 as a base salary, which raises to $66,249 by their third year. They also receive longevity pay for every year of service they accrue, and there are premiums paid for specialized training as well as an annual clothing allowance.
Firefighters enjoy similar compensation. A starting firefighter will earn $54,006 as a base salary and will raise to $63,536 in their third year. They, too, receive longevity pay, but not until their sixth year of service.
Non-contractual employees, including the council, the mayor, and the city clerk, are slated to receive three-percent raises. AFSCME workers receive the lowest wage increases at just one percent in 2025, with the exception of trolley drivers, who will receive a three percent raise.
Moore is hopeful the compensation package the city now offers will help attract new applicants for both public safety departments.
photo/Kokomo Police Department
“We continue to work on police and fire,” said Moore. “I know we've been aggressive in recruiting and gained and lost employees. We're still almost back to where we were just a couple years ago when we got started.
“There are just a lot of guys and gals aging out, and we’re trying to reload. It takes time to get them in and to the police academy or the training process.”
The plan in the 2025 budget is to hire six new firefighters. The police also are seeking to add six officers, raising their ranks to 92 from the current 86. The hiring process is taking place now in anticipation of budget passage.
Staffing is just one of the challenges facing the police and fire departments. Aging and broken equipment and vehicles also are a constant concern. For the fire department, the need for updated equipment is acute, especially considering the loss of a fire engine in a vehicle accident in late summer.
photo/Firefighters Local 396
“Yeah, we've had to dip into the coffers a little bit to address a couple immediate items with the fire department,” said Moore. “The life of a lot of the engines is only supposed to be like eight to maybe 15 years. Some of our most recent engines are 18, 20, 22 years old.
“So, we're trying to get back into a better position and trying to get a replacement rotation plan together. We may need to dip into cash reserves a little bit to do it.”
The fire department currently is waiting on an engine to be built, and it is renting an engine until the end of the year to replace the one damaged in an accident. Another piece of fire apparatus is in the 2025 budget at a cost of more than $1 million.
The equipment can’t be ordered quickly enough, Moore said.
“It's just the build time,” said Moore. “You order it, and then you're 18 months out before delivery.”
And speaking of building, two fire stations are slated to go under the knife in 2025, though the timing is very much up in the air. Moore stated affirmatively that Fire Station No. 6, located at the corner of Boulevard and Ind. 931, will be rebuilt.
“We're finally redoing Station Six,” said Moore. “That's under design right now, and it will stay there at Boulevard. We still feel like that location is good. And we're working with Stellantis to hopefully get some about 20 yards of ground to the west to increase the station’s footprint.
“We want to put a third bay in to accommodate the new ladder truck which won’t fit in the station’s existing bays.”
photo/Firefighters Local 396
Fire Station No. 3, located at the corner of Morgan Street and Apperson Way, also is expected to see some changes, though that future is very murky. Moore explained that the property owner to the south of the station isn’t interested in selling, and neither is CVS, which owns the empty storefront on the southwest corner of that intersection.
That leaves relocation, a smaller rebuild, or eminent domain as the only options available to the city. Moore has shown no interest in the latter path, and the relocation option comes with its own set of challenges as very few properties in the area are available for development. A decision on that station will have to come later.