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Your elected officials and the West Salem Fire District Board have been meeting regularly over the last eight months to solve the fire district’s financial crisis. In fact, the village has hired legal counsel to draft language for a referendum question for the fall election ballot asking the taxpayers to allow the village to exceed state-imposed levy limits in order to solve the fire district’s financial crisis. Yet, the fire department is implying that the village has put your safety in jeopardy.

Your elected officials feel the taxpayers deserve clarification and the correct facts with regard to the volunteer fire department’s letter to the editor.

The 2006 fire district’s request for money was $169,939.16 from the towns of Barre and Hamilton and the village of West Salem. Their first 2007 request for money was $237,811.39 or a 40 percent increase. The towns of Barre and Hamilton and the village are operating under state-imposed levy limits of 2 percent or the percentage value of new construction. For the village, the levy increase allowed was 3.86 percent, attributable to new construction. Since fire districts have no legal authority to levy a tax, their funding requests are added to your municipal budgets and fall under this state-imposed levy limit.

These state guidelines do allow municipalities to exceed levy limits under certain circumstances, including those favoring fire districts. In fact the fire district budget was increased (from 3.86 percent) to 4.3 percent for 2007. Because of this levy limit imposed on the village, the fire district had to reduce their original budget request from $237,811.39 to $177,246.53. If the village had met the entire 40 percent budget increase request, it would have had to cut other budget areas significantly and had to rework the whole village budget.

If Barre, Hamilton and West Salem did not appreciate the fire department’s 100-plus years of service to us, we would not be working as hard as we are to help the fire district through its financial crises.

Village officials have repeatedly offered to explain our budget preparation and reporting requirements to the fire department. As the fire district budget is an independent expenditure comprising three municipalities, our La Crosse County reporting agencies have asked us to supply their budget as a separate item of the village budget and so it does not show up as dollars in the fire department’s section. In fact, in January of 2008, the village paid $86,933 directly to the fire district as was requested. Fire department per-call compensation, equipment needs and NFPA standards are all matters for the West Salem Fire Protection District Board — not the village of West Salem or towns of Barre and Hamilton — and needs to be addressed at annual budget review time for all entities.

Public safety has never and will never take a back seat in the village budget. West Salem continues to support the First Responders’ annual budget requests, which for 2008 amounted to $30,965. West Salem has 24-7 law enforcement coverage provided by both the West Salem Police Department and the La Crosse County Sheriff’s Department. Street capital project expenditures have increased for 2008, but, to correct and clarify, road improvement grants are paying the increase. The expenses for an office assistant at village hall are paid from the water and sewer utilities — not the general fund budget. Your new parkland has been purchased from money which has been set aside in a restricted fund from park impact fees received from developers.

The village prides itself on prudent and conservative budgeting which includes saving your tax dollars toward major purchases so as to not unnecessarily burden our taxpayers much like your household does toward a new home purchase or other major expenditures. The First Responders annually budget in a similar manner for all of their equipment and supply needs.

Regardless of the fire department’s unfortunate accusation of our public safety concerns, the village of West Salem, town of Barre and town of Hamilton do appreciate the efforts of the West Salem Volunteer Fire Department and will continue to assist the fire department in any means possible under these state-mandated budget guidelines.

Harold G. Hoffman II, Diana Engel and Jim Leicht are members of the West Salem Finance and Personnel Committee.