Captiva Island Fire Control District budget includes purchase of new medical rescue apparatus
The Captiva Island Fire Control District has included the purchase of new medical rescue apparatus in its budget this year, which will help in getting individuals out of the elements to provide services.
The board unanimously passed its tentative budget during its hearing last week of $4,365,963. The use of funds includes $2,157,196 for personal services; $464,163 for operating expenses; $60,800 for capital outlay, $606,455 for debt services for total expenditures of $3,288,614. The budget also includes fund balances/reserves ending of $1,077,349.
The sources of funds includes ad valorem taxes of 1.9450, for a total of $2,892,767 into the general fund. Intergovernmental taxes generates $3,240, charges for services is $5,700 and miscellaneous is $9,000 for total revenue of $2,910,707. The fund balances/reserves-beginning is $1,455,256 for total sources of funds of $4,365,963.
Captiva Island Fire District Fire Chief Jeff Pawul said the new medical rescue apparatus will allow them to treat patients a little easier and better, as it would provide more privacy.
“If we have these calls of people on the beach, on the road, in the pool, out in the open, that is where we have to treat them,” he said. “It gives us a place to get people out of the elements. A lot of calls are on the beach. Treating someone’s loved one out in the open isn’t ideal. Sometimes you have no options. Having a new rescue unit like that would give us more ability to move them in the air condition and private to do an exam. It could improve services quite a bit.”
A timeline of when the apparatus will arrive to the island has yet to be determined, but is a planned project the district wants to move towards.
“Anything you try to buy now is an extended delay to order them. Unless we can find a stock one that someone already built, the typical delivery on something like that used to be six months. If I had to guess it is closer to nine months,: he said.
Pawul said the majority of the increase for the tentative budget is in relation to the landing zone project, which is kind of unknown on the island.
The landing zone project, a new location for the Lee County’s EMS helicopter to land.
“The cost is kind of unknown. It’s a guestimate, especially without having the environmental study back. We put a small number on that project to continue to move it forward,” he said.
The budget also includes a small increase in operations due to inflation, as medical supplies are more expensive and harder to get a hold of now.
“We are running a lot more calls than we have in the past, (but it’s) not directly related to COVID,” Pawul said as they are not actual COVID calls.
With more tourism on Sanibel and Captiva it is indirectly causing an increase to the call volume. With more visitors on the island, it creates more emergency calls.
Almost three quarters into the calendar year, Pawul said they have already run more calls than they did during the last calendar year. On average, the Captiva Island Fire District has between 60 to 70 percent medical related calls, while the remaining are due to marine related response calls, fire and rescue and vehicle calls.
Pawul said the budget is very well thought out, as they start the budget process in May. He said after finishing the yearly audit, they then roll over into the budget season for the next year.
“You have to project out those numbers for the next year to hopefully see what you can roll over. It’s a long process and not something that happens over night,” Pawul said, adding that it is presented in the July meeting and then fine tuned again in September. “With public safety there is a lot of unknowns. We are doing really well. It’s an efficient budget and well thought out for sure.
The final budget hearing is set for Sept. 23.