By HANNAH GUNNELL
When you ask Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers what the biggest accomplishment of 2024 is, his immediate answer is improvements to the city’s fire service.
The city hired 20 new firefighters in 2024, thanks to an excess tax levy.
“We were able to get what’s called an excess tax levy, which allows us to maintain our tax rate at the same level but as the assessed values of the homes go up, we get more money in, when normally that would lower the tax rate,” Myers said. “We were able to hire 12 new firefighters. Then we also had eight other openings. So we hired 20 firefighters total that are all currently in class. We’re training them all right now.”
The Greenwood Fire Department also started its first recruit school where they’re training these 20 hires plus additional firefighters from neighboring Decatur and Wayne townships. All 30 of the students began the class in November and passed all their exams to receive their Firefighter 1 and Firefighter 2 certifications last week.
“There are three certifications you have to have to be a firefighter, that’s firefighter 1, firefighter 2 and EMT,” Myers said. “All of them passed Firefighter 1 and 2 and that’s really exciting because it means my group of trainers are doing an excellent job training them.”
The city sought to hire extra firefighters because it intends to build a fifth fire station on Greenwood’s southeast side, on Graham Road where it turns into Collins Road.
“Part of goals for this year is building that new station, but along with building the new station we’re going to add on a separate training facility, and also a separate building that we can actually use to train inside of, where they can light fires inside of it, put up walls, make different rooms and constantly change it around so it’s never the same,” Myers said.
When completed, the new training facilities will be used by not just Greenwood Fire, but all south side fire departments who wish to do so, Myers said.
The city expects to break ground on the new station in early spring. It is currently in its design stages and estimated to cost about $12-15 million, which officials will issue bonds to pay for.
Other improvements to the Greenwood Fire Department last year include starting a rescue squad to respond to medical calls. GFD took about 9,000 calls last year, and 87 percent of those were medical — no fire was involved. The rescue squad replaces the big fire engine that previously would go out on those calls.
“It saves us quite a bit of money in manpower, fuel and equipment by sending out a $50,000 vehicle vs a million dollar fire truck,” Myers said. “It’s proven to be very effective.”
GFD also saw the delivery of two new fire trucks, a regular engine and a ladder truck.