While Fannin County’s firefighters’ pensions have not been affected yet, a possible lack of training could negatively impact pensions in the future.
“The law on the Georgia firefighters pension fund requires that volunteer departments provide eight hours of training per month, and it appears from talking to the fire chief and the training officer in Fannin County, that they haven’t met that requirement,” Georgia Firefighters’ Pension Fund Member Services representative David Luther said.
Pension Fund Executive Director Morgan Wurst explained that the issue in Fannin County is “purely a lack of training.”
He said, “The minimum is eight hours a month. We have departments around the state that actually do a lot more than that, but the amount that they’ve been doing, at least per the conversations, is a small fraction of that.”
At this time, pensions have not been affected. Wurst explained that their office is still reviewing the situation in Fannin County.
Pension Fund Field Representative Heath McGuire said the Pension Fund’s board has asked Fannin County Fire Chief Larry Thomas to attend a meeting in order to explain how the fire department operates.
“These firefighters really haven’t lost anything yet,” McGuire said. “It’s still under review and really we’re just gathering information right now.”
According to Luther, the Fannin department has experienced a lack of training dating back to 2018.
“They have currently lost credible service for 2018 and 2019 because we did not receive the documentation needed for those years,” Luther said. “The prior years are under review. We’re still collecting the documentation from the department.”
Wurst explained that Fannin’s department has appealed the loss of credible service for 2018 and 2019.
“The board would like to bring in the chief so that the appeal process can go smoother,” McGuire said.
Thomas could not recall how many training hours have been performed so far this year, and the department’s training officer, Dale Stiles, could not be reached for the information by press time.
According to Thomas, when someone from the Pension Fund had reviewed the department’s training hours for 2018 and 2019 they said, “You’re way over your hours.”
While training hours factor into the Insurance Services Office’s Public Protection Classification, Thomas does not feel the county’s fire protection rating will be affected when ISO comes back to review the county in November of this year.
“Training hours does play a factor in it, but it’s just a factor, a small factor,” Thomas said. “There’s a lot of stuff that plays a role in ISO.”
When asked if the training portion of ISO would be affected, he said, “No.”