EAST SPENCER — The East Spencer Board of Aldermen are considering staffing the town’s fire department with full-time employees, an endeavor that would require the town to raise property taxes short-term.

Town Manager Michael Douglas has proposed that the board consider a temporary property tax raise between 7.5 cents and 20 cents in order to pay for a full-time fire department. The town currently has a 66-cent tax rate.

The idea came because of the town’s response to the fire that destroyed the former Rowan-Salisbury School admin building in January of 2023, Douglas said. That firefighting effort relied heavily on mutual aid.

“We don’t have enough part-time folks, sometimes, to take the engine out in the event of a fire. So that’s very problematic for us,” Douglas said.

After seeing the need for more consistent staffing in the department, the town decided to attempt to be proactive and begin ramping things up before developments finish. Douglas pointed to an industrial complex being built on Andrews Street, 126 homes being built on Bringle Ferry Road and quadplexes being built in town as development that the town needs to prepare for. Douglas also said that having a fully-staffed fire department in town would help lower response times when compared to relying on mutual aid from Salisbury or Spencer.

“The council members are leaning forward. They’re being very proactive to ensure that residents’ homes don’t burn all the way down. If there’s some type of structural fire, we can get there and put it out and save as much as we can,” said Douglas.

Douglas noted that a 7.5-cent increase would create approximately $120,000 in revenue and the 20-cent increase would create approximately $320,000. That funding would go solely towards paying full-time staff, including one fire chief, three engineers, three firefighters and three captains.

The property tax increase would be effective for five years beginning in the 2025 fiscal year, Douglas said. After that five-year period, there is a proposed five-cent abatement that would go into effect for three years. By that time, the town hopes that the growth it is experiencing is enough to cover the costs at the lesser rate.

As of now, the tax hike is only a proposal and Douglas said that East Spencer residents would be given multiple opportunities to voice their opinions on the matter. The town will host community meetings in March, April and May where any resident will be allowed to voice their opinion. Specific dates have not yet been set.

“We’re going to have as much community engagement as we can so that residents understand. We’re going to break it down to the residents as quickly and as openly as we can because the reality is that the residents need to know how much this is going to cost them if these taxes are increased,” said Douglas.