Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Members of the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Board will remain status quo for 2026, and Fire Chief Joel Shilling will keep serving in his position another year after the board approved the reappointments Tuesday.
The makeup of the board is laid out in the interlocal agreement between the city and Wayne Township for the fire territory. The provider unit - the city - and the participating unit - Wayne Township - each have two appointments to the board and then they mutually agree on the fifth member, who is a community member that lives in the response territory, according to Shilling.
Members of the board are Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose, Common Councilman Mike Klondaris, Wayne Township Trustee Jeanie Stackhouse, Wayne Township Board member Gordon Nash and community member David Allbritten. Klondaris was absent from Tuesday’s meeting.
After approving the executive board reappointments, the board then unanimously approved the reappointment of Shilling as fire chief for another year.
“I think he’s doing a great job,” Allbritten said of Shilling.
Grose agreed, saying he appreciated Shilling’s efforts.
At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Grose also reported their next meeting on Jan. 6 will still be in the council chambers at City Hall instead of the Warsaw Police Department training facility.
During the Nov. 3 Common Council meeting, Grose said that due to work on the HVAC system that will be going on at the City Hall building by Core Mechanical, city council and other boards that meet in the council chambers would have their meetings at the WPD training facility from about Dec. 15 to Jan. 30. Those dates have since been pushed back.
Grose said Tuesday, “Because of a change with our contractor, we’ll actually be having the meeting on Jan. 6 in the council chambers. Our contractors for the HVAC system won’t be in the council chambers until the end of January.”
He said due to unforeseen events, the contractor has pushed their need to work in the council chambers part of the building until the end of January. It’s “very likely” the February WWFT Board meeting will be at the WPD training facility.
The change was something he said he just found out about. The other boards will be notified of the change.
Earlier in the short meeting, Shilling gave the monthly fire activity report for October. He said they had 310 responses, with 83 incidents (26.78%) overlapping.
Of those runs, four were fires.
WWFT provided mutual aid three times - twice to Leesburg and once to Claypool. They received mutual aid once, from Claypool.
The fire territory responded to 233 rescue/EMS calls in October; 15 hazardous conditions, with no fire; seven service calls; 29 good intent calls; and 21 false alarms/calls.
By station, station 17 responded to 117 calls; station 13, 157 calls; and station 15, 36 calls.
Firefighters with WWFT completed a total of 515 training hours and provided 72.07 hours of community service.
In her report, Lutheran EMS Director of Operations Alicia Mediano said October was one of their busier months in 2025 with 497 total calls. That’s up from 421 in September, 480 in August and 479 in both June and July. The busiest month of 2025 so far was January with 536, followed by February with 514.
Lutheran EMS provided a two-week long program with Warsaw Community High School sophomores, also in October, she said.
“It was in order to make the requirement for every student to be CPR-trained before they can graduate high school. We took it a step further and actually put them through an entire class that, not only were they CPR trained, but then they also were taught about Narcan, tourniquets, talking about Stop The Bleed. We showed them AEDs and did a bunch of other medical and traumatic scenarios to kind of practice in situations for real life,” Mediano stated.
Another thing that she pointed out to the WWFT Board that occurred in October was that Indiana hosted EMS World in Indianapolis.
“Typically, this is a program that travels all over the United States and people from literally all over the world come to this training. And this year we were really lucky to hold it actually in Indianapolis,” she said. “We went down for four days, and I was just really proud to bring back that every time we went into another class, they were talking about something that we have implemented here at Lutheran EMS.”
Those things ranged from medications that Lutheran EMS has been carrying for years to procedures to the relationship Lutheran EMS has with Shilling and his team.
“They talked about how important those relationships are, and every time we went into another class, they really talked about things that we already are doing. I was very proud to say that we were able to talk with several people from all over the United States asking us about how we implemented some of our programs,” Mediano continued, from their Mobile Integrated Health Program to their One Heart Program and how they work with the fire departments.
“I’m just really proud of that, and really proud of the fact that we have such the prestigious program that we have here in the community,” she concluded.
In other business, the board approved:
• A resolution to transfer $32,781.28 from the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) grant back into the WWFT operating fund to satisfy the State Board of Accounts’ requirements.
Shilling explained, “We had anticipated, with the CARES grant still being paid through FSSA, just coming back after the beginning of the year and just collecting and transferring all of those funds back into our account. But working with the clerk’s office, I found out today that they would prefer to have the account balance at zero at the end of the year.”
The resolution also will go before the Warsaw Common Council.
• For the WWFT to enter into a 2026 agreement with Lexipol for ongoing maintenance of the department’s policies and procedures. The renewal cost is $11,561.43, effective Jan. 1 to Dec. 31.
Shilling said, “Lexipol has been going through all of our policies and helping us kind of streamline our policies and procedures at the fire territory, and I would like to continue with that as well.”
• Three travel requests, including firefighter Tristan Pass to go to Plymouth Nov. 11-25 for driver operator-pumper class for a cost of $100; firefighter Zach Rumsyre to go to Wyatt Nov. 17 to Dec. 4 for fire and emergency services safety officer class at no cost; and Lt. Max Kinsey to Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 3-5 to attend company officer academy for $591.
• The operating and equipment replacement monthly expenditure reports as presented.
