By Monica Fragale
Contributing Writer 

The East Marlborough Township Board of Supervisors have invited the new administrator of the Kennett Fire and EMS Regional Commission to attend their next budget meeting and explain how the township’s fire and EMS contribution is used.

The meeting will be Wednesday, Oct. 16 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“We asked them to explain what the 2025 contribution of $1.4 million is going for, and what is the breakdown,” East Marlborough Township manager Neil Lovekin said at a township budget work session Oct. 2.

The commission named Kennett Township Manager Alison S. Dobbins as the administrator at its September meeting. The commission comprises the three fire companies in the area – Longwood, Kennett, and Po-Mar-Lin – as well as five townships – East Marlborough, Kennett, Pennsbury, Pocopson, and Newlin.

Annual township contributions are based on factors like number of calls within the borders, population, and assessed values. According to Lovekin, East Marlborough has the second-highest contribution behind Kennett Township.

“Alison being in place now is going to help,” said East Marlborough Supervisor John Auger. “Our frustration has been what is behind the wall.”

The East Marlborough supervisors are talking about increasing the fire tax by 2 mills to help cover the township’s estimated 2025 contribution of $1.4 million. A mill is $1 for every $1,000 of assessed value.

The estimated total township millage of 4.183, which does not take into account a proposed increase of the township’s general real estate tax, would cover East Marlborough’s 2025 obligation but nothing else, according to Lovekin.

“As of today, at 4.183 (mills) to increase fire and EMS to meet the minimum obligations,” Lovekin said. “It does not take us into the future.”

He explained that in East Marlborough, the EMS tax is allowed to go up to 0.5 mills, which is where it is currently. The fire tax could be increased by another mill, but any other increases would first need to be approved by public referendum.

The proposed budget could call for an increase in the fire protection tax from 0.675 to 2.25 mills, and in the EMS tax from 0.075 to 0.54 mills, according to Lovekin.

Gabby Ratliff the community relations director for Longwood Fire Company, said crises in staffing and funding have hit the three fire companies in the commission hard. It is a crisis being felt across Pennsylvania, she said.

“Halfway through the year we’re losing employees because everyone is struggling with staffing in fire,” she said. “Everyone is competing over the same people, and we had to do a wage adjustment too. Inflation is hitting everything.”

She added that donations have been impacted as well.

“Even our donations have not been what they were,” she said. “Now they’re giving less in donations. We have put a lot of our reserves in to keeping operations going to the point where we don’t have those anymore.”

The next meeting of the fire commission was Tuesday, Oct. 8.