The City of Niceville’s time of responsibility for fire protection in Valparaiso may soon end – thanks to budget shortfalls in Val-p.

How Did Valparaiso End Up In This Situation?

Valparaiso Mayor Brent Smith says Niceville City Manager David Deitch approached the commission on August 28 with a new arrangement: Val-p would need to contribute another $1.4 Million to the City of Niceville for fire services – or it would need to find fire protection elsewhere. “We’ve got to come up with something,” Smith said about the situation, “I mean, we’ve got to have protection for our citizens and our properties. So, the commissioners here are working together to try and pull that together.”

However, the City has had money troubles that date back to about half a decade before the City’s purchase of the old bank building. The City, as noted in Mid Bay News’ report: ‘The Twin City: A Plan to Merge the Cities of Niceville and Valparaiso, Florida to Save Money and Deliver Municipal Services More Efficiently’ has doubled its tax rate since the beginning of the millennium.

Add in what many residents consider the boondoggle that has resulted from the City of Valparaiso’s purchase of the old Synovus Bank Building in Val-p to use as a city headquarters – and the City may unravel into an unsolvable financial crisis.

“If we just hadn’t bought the [Synovus Bank Building] four years ago, all of this could have been avoided,” said one resident as she walked out of the commission chambers after the City’s budget hearing. By the commission’s own admission, the bank building has become a point of contention between the City’s leadership, and it’s residents due to its cost to purchase and the amount of time, almost four years, it has been off city tax rolls while not serving as a city hall. The building has encountered years of delays. The latest is coming in this same meeting. Commissioners had to approve the changing of engineering firm on the project due to a planning SNAFU that saw an elevator shaft installed over piping.  

“They are gonna come at us with pitchforks and knives if we don’t do something quickly,” Commissioner Tom Browning told the rest of the commission about residents’ displeasure concerning the still-idle former bank building.

Those issues and the City of Niceville’s efforts to tighten its overhead costs have left Val-p with a bill for upcoming services in Fiscal Year (FY) ’25 of $1.4 Million, plus the cost of maintaining their equipment.

The situation forced the Valparaiso’s City Commissioners to cut budgets severely in other areas. The Commissioners ordered the City Clerk, Tammy Johnson, to cut all unfilled positions from the budget, potentially cut cost of living raises and look at eliminating all or part of merit increases over the next year.

Still, the City will have to find over half of a million dollars in a budget totaling $11 Million. This is a tall order for a city of a little under 5,000 residents that relies heavily on single-family housing, utilizes the homestead exemption, and has very little rental or commercial property within its limits.

The City currently funds two full-time firefighters at its firehouse and pays for the costs of the building and engine at the station, which is located right down the road from city hall. It has allocated about $600,000 for the department but needs about $2,000,000 in total, including that $600,000 to keep its fire services from Niceville.

Possible Solutions

The situation looks grim for a city that has to cut roughly five percent of its costs in three weeks. The new budget year begins on October 1.

The City Commissioners will meet again on Monday to discuss the budget further, but if their meeting on September 9, Which Mayor Brent Smith said “got us nowhere,” is any indication, the City may not have a solution by the new fiscal year.

In the interim, these are the options before the City’s leaders.

Increase Taxes

The first and most administratively painful action that the City could take is to raise the millage rate. By state law, the City would have to have multiple public hearings and notify every taxpayer affected by the change – which would mean sending priority letters to every home and business in the City. The monetary cost, not to mention the political cost of giving a last-minute notice of a tax increase, would be steep for the commission. There is one saving grace: time. The commissioners face a vote again in the 2026 municipal cycle in 18 months.

Bob Bachelor, a Valpariso’s Planning and Zoning Board member, noted that this option, despite its backlash, might be the best option. The cost per household, of about $400 per year when split evenly among all homes, maybe a burden worth bearing. “That’s like an HOA fee,” Bachelor said, implying that an increase in property taxes may be the least-worst option on the table, “how are we going to get the best bang for our buck?”

Volunteer Fire Department

Another member of the audience, Former Assistant Chief of The Valparaiso Department Mike Hudson, argued that the City should go back to a partially volunteer fire department, while also arguing the trope that younger people don’t want to volunteer anymore because they are selfish. “In 2010, 72% of all firefighters in this country were volunteers. Right now. 2023-24, we’re down to 65%, and the problem is the generations are changing. They’re not wanting to put in the time to protect their community, hoping somebody else would do it.” He noted that the City of Valparaiso could incentivize volunteers to do the job with money by allowing Okaloosa County to house an EMS unit in the firehouse, too. “You know, [volunteers] used to get paid $10-15 a callm whether you were there for four hours or 15 minutes.”

After winding around his point for the better part of 10 minutes, Hudson concluded that the City should both contract with the East Niceville Fire Department and pay for books for students at Northwest Florida State College studying fire science.

Like he was shot from a cannon, Valparaiso’s Building Inspector/City Administrator and General Contractor Carl Scott marched to the dais to respond to using volunteers. “10 years ago, we had a decent combination department,” Scott started, “five years ago, it absolutely sucked. It was the worst department on the face of the earth. I’ve seen [volunteers] personally running from the Tom Thumb to the fire station on foot, standing in my own yard and I’m thinking, ‘no way are we responding to anything today.’ This ain’t happening. And I was just thinking, standing out there in the yard, ‘thank God I’m not having a heart attack, because by the time they got there and then got back here, I’m done [dead].’

So, I’m not too fond of [volunteer fire departments]. I’m not too fond of going back to the way it was.”

Scott noted that he had reached out to Okaloosa Emergency Medical Services about the potential to house an EMS unit in the Valparaiso Fire Station and was met with some interest. However, the interest didn’t mean that the City would have Advanced Life Support Services from Okaloosa EMS at all times in exchange for the use of a building. EMS Ambulances shift from staging area to staging area as calls require and time of year demands. For example, more ambulances are stationed closer to Destin and Okaloosa Island in the summer, because most of the county’s medical calls originate in the south end due to the influx of tourists. In the winter, the ambulances shift to the north because a larger proportion of calls come from year-round residents (most of whom live north of Eglin Air Force Base) who happen to live in the north.

East Niceville

Chief Birch of the East Niceville Fire Department was on hand to pitch the City on contracting fire service through them. Birch claimed that his department could provide service to Valparaiso for about $400,000 less than the City of Niceville could. Birch’s proposal would also lock Valparaiso into a ten-year agreement with East Niceville.

The East Niceville Fire District, which is a state-chartered special district with taxing authority that provides fire protection to areas to the west of the Rocky Bayou Bridge not located in the City of Niceville, has a millage rate of 3.4, which means residents in their boundaries pay, on the average home (according to recent real estate sales), about $1870 per year in taxes for fire protection. For $27.50 per month more on the same valued home, the residents in Niceville City Limits get access to police protection, a dedicated road and streets department, a fire inspector, city water and sewer and a parks department. The East Niceville Fire District has seen its revenues winnow over the last five decades as more and more property moves inside city limits, increasing economies of scale for Niceville and decreasing them for East Niceville.

Additionally, East Niceville must provide fire protection for an exclave outside of city boundaries in Rocky Bayou Estates. The exclave, an eight-minute drive around Rocky Bayou Country Club, past Ruckel Airport, and across John Sims Parkway, serves as a difficult-to-protect neighborhood for the East Siders due to its separation from the rest of the district.

There is bit of good news for this course of action: Carl Scott noted that the East Niceville Fire Department had already sussed out new recruits from Northwest Florida State College’s Fire Science Program and was ready to bring them online to serve the Valparaiso area if necessary.

Valparaiso’s commissioners noted the less expensive price point Birch gave and asked Clerk Johnson to refigure the budget based on their numbers.

New Old Chief

Former Valparaiso Volunteer Fire Chief and current member of the State of Florida’s Fire Marshal Service Charlie Franks also pitched his services as an alternative to the current situation. With an extensive spreadsheet to back his ideas, he believed that he would present a better alternative for the City than the services of Niceville and East Niceville.

Ocean City Wright

Creating another partnership similar to the proposal with East Niceville FD, but with Ocean City Wright was also brought forward as an option, but with a caveat: they would not have the additional workforce to cover Valparaiso starting in the new budget year, just 21 days away from the time of the meeting. “They said ‘absolutely no way could they take over October 1 and make it work,'” City Administrator Carl Scott said. Scott did add that he’d talked to Okaloosa County’s Public Safety leadership about bunking down an EMS unit in the Valparaiso Fire Department as a way to offest costs. Okaloosa County was “100 percent interested,” Scott said.

Pay Niceville, Cut Other Services

Finally, and probably just as painfully as raising taxes – Commissioners could cut jobs and services to save money and pay the City of Niceville the additional $1.4 Million City Commissioners, say Niceville Manager David Deitch said it would be necessary to continue their agreement. Everything would be on the table in a cut scenario, from the library to the public works department – depending on how much money the City needs to make ends meet.

Now What?

The City of Valparaiso will have some difficult decisions to make soon. Those decisions must come between Monday, September 16 and October 1. In the interim, Valparaiso Clerk Tammy Johnson is tasked with creating a new budget with the assumption that the city will work with East Niceville Fire Department. The city will convene again on September 16 to discuss the budget for the coming year.