Oswego Fire Protection District asking voters to approve 10-year $17M bond sale in balloting Tuesday

Oswego Fire Protection District officials are trying a new approach to gain passage of a referendum to help the agency pay for its rising operational costs.

The agency’s Board of Trustees has placed a referendum on the April 4 ballot that, if approved, would allow the district to sell up to $17 million in general obligation bonds to pay for what district officials describe as its “critical needs.”

Fire Chief John Cornish said the fire district would, in turn, use the proceeds from the bond sale over next 10 years to buy new vehicles and equipment, fund the construction of an additional fire station and retire a portion for the district’s current debt.

Cornish said he and other district officials have listened and learned from the voters over the course of three failed referendum attempts dating back to the April 2021 consolidated election.

Cornish said in each of the prior referendums the district was asking voters to approve a permanent property tax rate hike to provide revenues that would allow the district to maintain current service levels as the local population continues to grow.

However, Cornish said by asking to voters to authorize the bond sale, the agency is seeking a specific amount of money – $17 million – to cover the cost of every item in the agency’s 10-year capital improvement plan.

If approved, the general obligation bond would cost the owner of a home valued at $300,000 about $93.93 more on the fire district’s portion of their annual property tax bill.

Cornish, however, said the cost to individual homeowners potentially could decrease as the population of the fire district continues to grow over the next decade and more homes and businesses are added to the property tax rolls.

The final year the bond sale charge would be included on local property tax bills would be 2034. After 2034, the additional tax to repay the bonds would be removed from the fire district’s portion of local tax bills.

“We listened to the public and they said they don’t want a ‘forever tax,’” Cornish said. “We heard time and time again [from the voters]: ‘What do you need? Do you need a [fire] truck? We will give you the money for a truck. Do you need a new building? We will give you the money for those things that you will need.’ So we went back to the drawing board and that’s where the general obligation bond comes into play.”

Cornish said the fire district’s financial needs have not changed since the first referendum two years ago.

“We need the same things. We are just asking for the money in a different format,” he said.

“We need the same things. We are just asking for the money in a different format.”

—  Fire Chief John Cornish, Oswego Fire Protection District

Among the items in the capital improvement plan targeted for funding with bond proceeds, Cornish said, are the purchase of three new fire engines, the replacement of two ambulances, the rechassieing of three other ambulances and the purchase of an additional ambulance, five staff cars, rescue tools and cardiac monitors.

Cornish said one of the fire engines the agency is seeking to replace dates to 1998, while the oldest ambulance was acquired in 2006.

Cornish said it will cost the fire district about $1.65 million to replace two current ambulances, rechassie three other ambulances and purchase a new one.

Cornish said the new ambulance would be for use out of the proposed fifth station, which also is included in the capital improvement plan.

“We know that sometime over the next 10 years we will need that fifth station,” he said.

The fire district, which serves a population of more than 75,000 residing in a 52-square-mile area of northeastern Kendall and northwestern Will counties, currently operates four stations, two in Oswego, one in Montgomery and one in Plainfield.

As the district’s population continues to grow, Cornish said so does the number of ambulance and fire calls the agency responds to every day.

According to fire district data, the agency responded to more than 6,700 incident calls last year, a 64% increase over the total number of incident calls in 2012.

Assistant Fire Chief Dan Schiradelly said the likely location for a fifth fire station would be in the Wolf’s Crossing Road corridor area in Oswego.

“If you look at the development in our district, Wolf’s [Crossing] Road is blowing up [with development],” Schiradelly said. “Putting a station out there, somewhere near Oswego East [High School], has always been on the district’s map.”

Cornish and Schiradelly noted that a station in the Wolf’s Crossing Road area would assure prompt ambulance and fire response times as the area continues to develop.

Cornish said the fire district wants to continue to meet its goal of having its paramedic/firefighters on the scene within four to six minutes of the initial call for help. But because of the district’s population growth and high call volumes, he said, response times can increase.

“We talk about calls volumes and growth, but the response times are huge for us,” Cornish said. “We know we need to have Advanced LIfe Suport equipment and manpower on the scene.”