Public safety officials said calls for service to fire departments and emergency service providers have substantially increased over the past few years as Montgomery County’s population continues to grow.

As a result, new fire departments are planned for areas surrounding The Woodlands, and emergency medical service providers are adding more ambulances each year to keep up response times.

Kevin Hosler, fire chief for Needham Fire and Rescue Company, which contracts with Emergency Service District No. 4 to provide emergency services, said Montgomery County growth is having a profound effect on fire departments.

“I’ve been in the fire service for 34 years,” Hosler said. “Now, there is a fire truck on every corner. Needham Fire Rescue started as a majority of volunteers. Because of growth, we are now a full professional fire department. The shift has been astronomical.”

Boom in service demand

The South Montgomery County Fire Department and NFRC are both planning multiple new fire stations to address population growth in the county.

Hosler said while the NFRC has three existing stations, two more are planned for the future. One station on FM 1488 near Old Conroe-Magnolia Road will be built within the next two to three years, and another near Sleepy Hollow Road will be built in the next three to five years. Final costs for each station have not been  announced, he said. The fire company also opened up a new $1.2 million station in August on Sleepy Hollow Road near Trails End, west of the Chateau Woods area

fThe stations are funded by property taxes and sales taxes collected in the area, which total 10 cents per $100 valuation, a rate that has been rising since 2014, and 1.5 cents per dollar, respectively.

“These new stations have been driven by growth,” Hosler said. “ We decide on these new locations by the number of calls in the area and our goal to keep our response time between five and six minutes.”

Clint Cooke, assistant fire chief with the SMCFD—which serves the Rayford Road corridor and is part of ESD No. 8—said the department has also been planning new locations to adapt to population growth. The department recently opened a new $2.8 million station in the master-planned community of Harmony in early July to improve response times on the east side of I-45.

As with other ESDs in the area, the station was funded by the department’s general budget from property and sales taxes collected in the area. Property taxes within ESD No. 8 total 9 cents per $100  valuation, which has been consistent since 2013, and sales tax is 1 cent per dollar.

“Our personnel has tripled in the last six years, and our new Harmony location is going to help out quite a bit,” Cooke said. “It would take us 10 minutes to get in to the back of Bender’s Landing Estates. So our locations are driven by the response time to that area.”

Cooke said while the fire department has five stations, two more are planned for the future, with one near the Grand Parkway in the next five years and one in the Bender’s Landing Estates area in one to two years. He said costs for these stations have not been finalized.

Alan Benson, fire chief for The Woodlands Fire Department, said his department has reached build-out with the completion of Station 7 on Kuykendahl Road in 2009 and Station 8 on Gosling Road in 2010. While future stations are not planned, the department is still working to keep up with the population.

“Our challenges are different because our community is densely populated,” he said. “We are seeing overlapping calls so multiple stations within The Woodlands are responding to an incident.”

He said between July 2016 and July 2017, 34.5 percent of all calls were overlapping. The result is a lag in response times if the station gets another call; however, Benson said the department is monitoring the issue closely to keep response times at or below five minutes.

“The south county area is especially growing,” Benson said. “You need a distribution of resources to spread out far enough to take advantage of the most land possible.

EMS services have also seen an increase in calls and personnel over the past few years. Jared Cosper, EMS director with the Montgomery County Hospital District, said there has been a 6 percent increase in ambulance calls each year for the past five years.

“From an EMS perspective, growth had definitely affected demand,” Cosper said. “We’ve improved vehicles to get through traffic since traffic can be a problem. The Woodlands area and the south county area are our busiest parts of the county.”

He said the county is adding one to three ambulances to MCHD’s fleet each year to keep up with the number of calls placed. The cost of a fully loaded ambulance costs $350,000, with funding coming from both tax revenue from the Montgomery County Hospital District and from EMS billing services.

Department challenges, funding limits

While officials with the SMCFD and NFRC have added stations and increased recruitment, funding is still a concern for these departments.

Cooke said the majority of emergency services districts are funded through property taxes. However, there is a state maximum of how much ESDs can collect set at 10 cents per $100 valuation. 

Hosler said operating costs are an issue as inflation and the cost of living increases in the area, and the cap on funding can also prevent stations from being built and equipment from being added to ESDs.

“There are most definitely limits,” he said. “[Years ago], you could buy a fire truck for $200,000, and now they are between $500,000 to $600,000.”

ESDs in Montgomery County operate using sales tax revenue to supplement property tax funds, but there is a state cap of 8.25 percent on sales tax, and only 2 cents of that can be imposed locally, according to the Texas Comptroller’s office.

Senate Bill 2, proposed by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, could reform how the entities collect property tax revenue. The bill was voted on and passed by the Senate on July 24. If the bill becomes law, the property tax revenue cap for cities and counties would be reduced to a 4 percent increase over the previous year, unless voters approve a higher cap in a special election,  which could add restraints to tax revenues collected by cities and ESDs.

“A concern is the state Legislature’s property tax reform,” Cooke said. “We’re capped at 10 cents and it can be a [problem]. If it wasn’t for sales tax, then we’d have a significant problem. The cap on property tax would not allow the fire departments we have.”