QUINCY — Determining how much to pay for fire protection services was the subject of a lengthy discussion at the regular Quincy City Council meeting Tuesday.

The city’s contract with Grant County Fire District 3 expired at the end of 2023. City and fire district administrators have been negotiating a new agreement, and Administrator Pat Haley presented details of a proposal to the council. Council members didn’t make a decision on accepting or rejecting it.

If both sides accept the contract the city would pay about $737,800, an increase of about $80,100 from 2023.

In 2013 city officials hired a consultant to help determine how the fee should be assessed, and that resulted in a formula used in the original negotiations. One of the components of that formula is the assessed value of land within the city. Haley said that complicated the discussion since the city is home to a number of data centers, which don’t have the same need for fire protection that a lot of new homes would.

Council member Dave Dormaier was on the committee that helped come up with the revised proposal and said it wasn’t easy to find something that took all the factors into account.

“How can we go about this, in a yearly review with data we can all agree on, and that’s easily obtainable by the city without a lot of work?” Dormaier said.

Haley said the formula accounts for the percentage of square miles, number of calls and population that the city makes up within the GCFD 3. It factors in the resources and equipment provided by the city, he said. Like everybody else GCFD 3 has felt the effect of inflation, and the agreement would take that into account. 

From 2025 on, Haley said the formula will be changed to take into account the impact that the data centers have on the assessed valuation. 

“What does assessed valuation have to do with firefighting?” asked Council Member Dylan Kling.

“It evaluates the community’s ability to pay,” Haley said. 

The original agreement also included the contract between GCFD 3 and Protection One, the privately owned ambulance company that covers the Quincy area. That contract has been taken out of the calculations for determining the city’s fee, Haley said, since the city also has a contract with Protection One. 

The contract from 2025 forward would have a cap on the amount of GCFD operational expenses that would be used to calculate the city’s fee, Haley said. 

The fire district does require some additional training to fight a fire at a data center, according to the contract, but council member Jeff Spence disputed that. Council member Jim Kling said the data centers have good fire suppression systems, and he didn’t think the city would be called to many fires there.

Haley said the proposal would be submitted to the council for approval or rejection at a later meeting.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].