At the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors’ town hall meeting last Wednesday, March 26, residents spoke on their concerns about the proposed budget, the management of county growth, the cost of building a new Gloucester Volunteer Fire & Rescue Squad Station 1 and more. The meeting was held in the T.C. Walker Education Center auditorium.

In this format, supervisors were able to respond directly to constituents; this is normally not allowed during regular board meetings. “This is a good exchange of information as we go through this budget,” said supervisor Ken Gibson.

Howard Mowry and Kathleen Jones both raised concerns about the proposed tax increase.

“I’d be willing to bet a year’s salary that most people in Gloucester do not want you to raise taxes and want you to spend responsibly,” said Jones. She also voiced her worries about Gloucester growing too quickly and keeping the county rural.

“As a citizen, I’d like to see you not raise taxes and spend what we have efficiently,” continued Jones. “And I would love to see a Department of Gloucester Efficiency formed with regular citizens.”

“I believe that it’s critical that we manage growth to preserve our rural, small-town way of life,” responded Gibson. “And our county right now is stressed in so many areas. Our infrastructure is stressed, our first responders are stressed. Their calls are increasing. The traffic on [Route] 17 continues to grow and grow. Our schools are stressed by the challenge of our budget. Our utility system is stressed. And all of these pressures mean that we have to be extremely careful about growth because our infrastructure can’t handle much more.”

Supervisor Dr. Robert “JJ” Orth spoke about the growth Gloucester will see once the tolls are removed from the Coleman Bridge, which links Gloucester and York counties.

“When those tolls come off, I think it’s going to be a tough job on our part to figure out how to manage growth,” said Orth. He mentioned that when the tolls came off one time before, “growth went through the roof.”

Teresa Altemus spoke on the failed 2023 bond referendum that included a real estate tax increase of 2 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. The referendum was proposed to fund several projects, including the construction of GVFRS Station 1.

In Altemus’s opinion, the referendum failed “primarily because the citizens were told countless times, not only by members of this board, but the county administration, that during your meetings the fire department could be funded without a tax increase.”

“If I had to go back again, we wouldn’t have had a referendum,” said supervisor Chris Hutson. “Because we had the ability that we could have done a 2-cent tax increase and been able to fund the other items that are desperately needed for the county that we weren’t able to do. And, as a result of the referendum failing, last year we didn’t have a tax increase. We actually drew money out of the fund balance and for recurring funds.”

Hutson said that he believed that there would not be as high a potential tax increase this year if there had been the 2-cent tax increase the previous year.

“We didn’t have the cash that so many people thought we had to build the fire department,” continued Hutson. “There was no cash available. There was going to be loans that we were going to have to take out to do it.”

“We had enough to borrow just for the fire department,” said County Administrator Carol Steele. “We have this very long list growing and continuing to grow millions of dollars every year we push back the sports complex, every year we push back other improvements, they go up in price.

“So, the board collectively, maybe not 100 percent, but collectively agreed this was an opportunity to go ahead and put several projects together.”

Steele went on to say that if the county just borrowed for the fire department to break ground in fall 2024, “our debt payment would not have allowed us to have enough cash on hand to go back and borrow more.”

“I think there comes a point and a time when, collectively, this board needs to make a decision,” said Altemus.

“If we would have put all the projects together, we could have gotten general obligation bonds and had it at a lot cheaper rate than anywhere near what we’re going to pay today,” said Hutson.

“We had less than $3 million of available funding that we could have applied to the fire station,” said Gibson. “In 2023, the fire station was $12.1 million. We had $3 million. We had a $9 million deficit. There was no money available to build that fire station. The only way to build that fire station was through borrowing money or taxing. That was it. The money was not there.”

The station is now projected to cost $17.3 million, an increase of over $5 million since 2023.

GVFRS Chief J.D. Clements also spoke during the meeting about Station 1.

“We hope to get the shovel in the ground by the end of the year,” said Clements. “It’s going to be close.”

He also spoke on the continuing challenges facing GVFRS.

“Our EMS [emergency medical services] call volume last year went up 8 percent,” he said. “Fire call volume went up 12 percent. Along with that, related costs go up expeditiously and you can’t expect us to maintain level funding. These things are going to have to go up.

“It’s a big expense,” continued Clements, “but it’s not nearly as big of an expense if it had to go to be [or become] a career fire and rescue.”