Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
BURKET - A grant hearing Thursday evening provided residents of the town of Burket and Seward Township an opportunity to hear more about the emergency services building the Burket Volunteer Fire Department and the township have been planning and raising funds for since George W. Bush was president.
Retired Burket Fire Chief Kevin McSherry kicked off the hearing by having the firefighters in the room raise their hand to identify themselves. He then said, “The rest of you are why we do this. This is more about you than it is about us. We’re trying to provide services for you and we’ve outgrown our building. We can not provide you any additional services without space, like water rescue with all of our lakes. We’ve wanted to do that for years and we just don’t have the room. ... You are why we’re here tonight: To provide a better service for you.”
Including firefighters, there were more than 50 people attending the grant hearing.
The Grant Application
Baker Tilly Senior Manager Shannon McLeod, a certified grant writer and administrator, said she was approached by McSherry several months ago and he indicated the fire department and township were looking at potentially getting a new building if they could get some funding together. They reached out to her to see if there was any grant funding available.
She told him there was a program through the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, a state agency that receives money through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to divvy up to small cities and towns throughout the state. The grant is from the State Community Development Block Grant Public Facility Program.
“The grant amount is $750,000, so that’s quite a big piece of the pie on this project, so we’re hopeful that our application will be successful and that we can acquire those funds to make this long-term concept ... a reality,” McLeod stated.
It’s a two-phase grant process. They first have to submit a proposal, which is due Sunday. As part of the process, a public hearing is required to explain the project to the public.
Over the next few months, McLeod said the proposal will go in Sunday and then they will have a lot of support documentation to collect, including letters of support from residents. Once all the documents are pulled together, the full grant application will be submitted Dec. 13.
“We will be requesting the full grant amount, which is $750,000. It will go in and it will be scored against the other applicants. This is an extremely competitive program, but I think you have a strong project here and we’re just going to put the best application we can together,” she said.
Late February or early March, McLeod said they should know whether or not they will receive the grant. It’s an all-or-none grant. If they don’t get the grant, she said they would reapply in the first grant cycle of 2027.
“So it kind of delays it about six months, but at the same time, without these grant dollars, this building is going to have to be pushed a little further down the road because there is a little bit of a price tag, unfortunately, but that’s the case with everything anymore,” she said.
The total estimated budget cost of the building is $2,245,000. The grant, if approved, would cover $750,000 of that, leaving the community, fire department and township to come up with about $1,495,000. She said the great thing is, they’ve been able to save approximately half of that with cash on hand.
“That has been just been by scrimping and saving and doing a lot of fish fundraisers,” McLeod. “But they’ve been able to kind of bank that and invest that and keep going.”
There is a little bit of a financial gap to fill, and she said they are looking at some options to do that, such as some private foundations.
“That in turn, when we get closer to the application, which is in December, we will have to be able to solidify where all the funds (are coming from). So our second public hearing, which we anticipate will transpire on Dec. 1, we’re going to do that in conjunction with the county commissioners meeting because the county commissioners are sponsoring this grant on behalf of the fire department,” McLeod explained.
Why It’s Needed
McSherry and Fire Chief Bryce Good explained what the new building would include and why it’s needed.
McSherry said the tract of land the building will be built on is just north of Burket Education Center. It was acquired for just the lawyer and surveying fees, and is not within the town limits.
“So, we’ve got the land. We owed nothing on it, and it will be appraised for a value that will go toward the big pot,” he said.
He showed a drawing of the revised building plans. It previously included a training center, but that was changed to a community center with a little kitchenette and restrooms so groups can use the building without accessing the fire department area.
There’s four independent sleeping quarters and a kitchen.
“So we were planning this to house full-time firemen. Right now we have what we call squads, and in lieu of 25 of us going to a medical call at night, we’ve broke ourself up, with the new management in town, they’re doing a great job, so only five of us have to get up and go to that medical call,” McSherry said.
Once it’s up and going, some of the squad members could sleep at the building, which will increase the fire department’s response time, McSherry said.
“We’re trying to provide a better service for you,” he stated.
The building has five vehicle bays, with two doors in the back and five in the front. A meeting room was moved from the original plans, while a hose tower was eliminated from the original plans due to costs. There’s several offices in the plan.
“We have to wash our gear because the smoke is full of carcinogens and if we get too much of it on us, it causes cancer,” McSherry pointed out, so the new building would have a room with a washing machine and dryer.
“This is a one-story setup. The final drawing is not done yet. It might turn into a two-story, which would reduce the footprint of that a little by stacking some of it,” McSherry said, adding it’s not going to be a showplace but a “fancy pole building that’s very well insulated and very functional.”
Good said the fire department’s biggest problem now is, “The needs of the fire service continue to grow and we can’t. We are eliminated by space. Our trucks are getting bigger. We couldn’t house bigger trucks than we currently have.”
To get the fire engine from 2001 into the current station, the wall had to be modified and storage space was eliminated.
“Our big goal here is just to be able to (meet) the needs of the community. Currently, we’re running four trucks, but we’ve talked about water rescue, we’ve talked about lots of different options that we as firemen can get into,” Good said.
The current fire department roster is about 25-26, and they’re running 250-300 calls a year.
“We’re looking to grow, make things efficient. From a taxpayer aspect, we can’t even wash our trucks currently in our building in the winter months. There’s no (water) drain in our station. We’re just strapped,” Good noted. “Don’t be surprised if it’s 32 degrees outside and you see a bunch of young firemen outside washing, making ice in the street, because that’s what we’re stuck with and it’s unfortunate. We’d like to change that, and this allows us to do that.”
A new fire engine is over $1 million, and Burket is still running a 2001 and Good said they’re looking to keep trucking that engine for as long as they can. However, it has to be maintained and the salt and wet months are the hardest on it.
As to why to have living quarters, Good said, “Volunteers are diminishing. We are one department in our county that has been very blessed with a borderline full roster and we are recruiting all the time. This (building) could help us with recruiting, this could help us expand and potential for if the day ever comes where we have to actually staff a fire station, we’re able to do it. This is a long game. This is a long-term plan, and we’re trying to check all the boxes in the process economically, but nothing’s ever super economical when you’re building anything.”
Questions
Asked what the current fire department building will be used for, McSherry said the training center building belongs to the firemen and there’s no municipal money or tax dollars in it. The town, township or county don’t pay anything for it. It was built in 1991 so the firefighters would have their own building. They will continue to maintain it so they can continue to have their fish frys in it. The firefighters let the town use it for their meetings.
The other fire station with the bays does belong to the town and McSherry said he doesn’t know what it’ll be used for as that’ll be up to them.
One of the crowd members asked what would happen if they don’t do the building.
“Well, we got the original drawing in 2004, and the building cost has almost doubled, just in that time. You can’t just run out and build something without having a plan to pay for it. So the longer we wait, it stands to reason it’ll cost us more,” McSherry said.
Burket firefighter and Turkey Creek Township Fire Department Chief Deputy Shade Keeney said, “We’re small, but we’re one of the busier 100% volunteer fire departments in our county.”
