Grants boost Midway FD
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

The first month of the new budget year is under the Midway Fire District's belt and fire commissioners reviewed an accounting of expenses and revenues closely at their meeting last week.

"We have to keep close eye on each month's bottom line this year to make sure we can make it through the budget year," treasurer Clyde Broome pointed out.

Last month the district responded to 154 calls. To cover those calls, they paid out $61,707 in salaries for the month. Their total expenses for October 2007 were $482,518. In that cost list, however, was a $70,000 payment for a new educational trailer that was covered by a grant - so Broome pointed out that it really was not an "expense" to the district.

The largest expense listed was $163,945 for an insurance premium.

"That makes that column look bad for one month, with this insurance premium right up front. But that will level out," Broome said. "We just had to make a large lump sum payment right up front for the year."

Net revenues collected for the month totaled $310,419. In those revenues, $11,845 was collected in impact fees. The district received monies from two grants, also -- $46,200 from a 2007 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant and $47,026 from another grant to help pay six firefighters hired last year.

In other Midway Fire District news, the Midway Fire Commission has a new chairman. The commissioners held their re-organizational meeting last week, and Jaque Gorris was elected unanimously as chairman for the next year.

Buck Thackeray has served as chair for the past two years. Gorris was the vice chair.

"We have been through a lot over the past two years and we are heading into some challenging times within the next few months," Thackeray said. "But it will be nice to be able to make some motions again and be part of that process, being able to comment a little more often than I can in this chair."

Vice Chairman for the next year will be Joe McPherson, and T.J. Emma will serve as secretary. The treasurer's duties will remain with Clyde Broome.