Holiday Island is in the market for a new fire chief.
Randy Ates, who has headed the Holiday Island department since late 2022, submitted his resignation on Monday, July 8, he confirmed. His last day will be Friday, July 26.
“I submitted my resignation with the fire department here,” Ates said Friday, July 12. “I’ve enjoyed my time but I think it’s time to explore other options in my career.”
The department, which consists of three paid employees supported by volunteers, is funded by the Holiday Island Suburban Improvement District.
“I did not want to leave them hanging,” Ates said regarding July 26 being his final day. “I am teaching my assistant chief, Gary Martin, the ins and outs so he can assume the spot as interim.”
Ates said he didn’t want to get into specifics about the reasons that led to his resignation.
“If you’re wanting to do a news story I would encourage you to contact some other folks that would be in position to be able to speak freely,” he said.
An email sent to Rich Figgins, district manager for the Holiday Island Suburban Improvement District, inquiring about Ates’ resignation was not answered.
Ates said he is still considering his next career move.
“I’ve got a lot of things for options,” he said. “I’m just waiting to see which one pops to the top, which one is most desirable.”
Ates’ resignation comes just under three weeks after a monthly meeting of the HISID Board of Commissioners where the district’s budget was discussed. Fire department expenditures were specifically mentioned.
Jennifer Head, a CPA who works on financial matters with HISID, reminded commissioners that the district’s budget included a “huge deficit.”
“It’s a huge deficit budget and really needs to be revised,” Head said. “Having a deficit budget, and we’ve already had one company look at that, if it continues and people come and you try to get bonds or insurance or something like that, they look at your budget. Having a huge deficit budget like you have could hurt you in the future…” “We just might have to make some cuts, period,” commissioner Douglas Pinkley said. “I think we’re going to have to make some cuts.”
Commissioner Ken Brown then specifically asked Head about the fire department budget, mentioning equipment and personnel expenses.
“Does anything jump out at you?” Brown asked. “We love our fire department but can we afford to continue to fund it the way we have been?”
Head and many commissioners answered simultaneously with “no.”
“The short answer is no,” commissioner Phyllis Sarratt said.
The fire department budget needs to be looked at, Head said.
“There are some things that were put into it last year that I felt didn’t need to be, but that’s just my personal opinion,” Head said. “I really think it needs to be looked at. The equipment was needed. … But, you’ve got the equipment now and you need the budget to be able to maintain those vehicles so they don’t get into dire shape and be right back in this position.
“But, there’s some other line items in there the way things were done, because that has a hefty budget for a rural department.”
Sarratt responded that the fire department budget was something that Figgins could “sit down with Chief Ates and really take a sharp pencil to.”
“That’s part of his job, is to manage,” Sarratt said, referring to Figgins.
Head told commissioners that she could work with Figgins on a revised budget.
“I am not leaving because of the budget cuts,” Ates said in a text message to the Times-Echo. “That did play a role in my decision, but so did many other things.”
Ates spoke positively about his time as chief.
“I’ve really enjoyed being at Holiday Island Fire Department,” he said. “The department has grown and moved forward by leaps and bounds to meet the needs of the community. There’s tremendous public support. There’s fantastic paid staff and wonderful volunteers who are very dedicated.
“I hope the public will continue to support the fire department, and that it will receive the funding that it needs to meet the needs of this community.”
INSPECTIONS AND OVERTIME
After the discussion on the budget at the June 24 HISID meeting, commissioners went into executive session to discuss a request to move Martin’s status with the fire department from hourly to salaried, in part to help alleviate frequent overtime doing inspections on short-term and long-term rentals as part of the new Conditional Use Permit requirement ordinance passed by the city.
The issue was debated at a June 17 workshop.
“So, with the many hours that Gary’s been putting in with the inspections for the longterm, short-term and businesses, we in our contract with the city, it actually says that we will do the inspections,” Figgins told commissioners in the workshop. “So, he’s been working very long hours and a lot of overtime trying to get some inspections done during his work time, the 24-hour shifts that he does.
“We are proposing that we switch him to a $60,000 salary, and then that way he can get done within the allotted time that he has and it will cut back on his overtime.”
Ates and Martin also spoke at the workshop, telling commissioners that changing Martin’s employment status would be a benefit, including allowing him to respond to residents’ request in a more timely manner.
“There are numerous advantages to moving Gary to day shift, as I would call it, for coverage,” Ates said at the June 17 workshop. “One of the problems that our public is having is they can’t get in touch with us. We have no office staff if no one is in the building … A lot of our requests are by email, and sometimes those don’t get caught until late in the day. So, we have a lot of complaints from our public that they want to get inspections done, or they need a re-inspection done, or they have a fire code question and can’t get in touch with us.
“Having Gary available every day of the week will help to cut down on some of those complaints and give us a better image in our public’s mind.”
Volunteers are also limited during the workday, Ates told commissioners.
“Another advantage to this is during the daytime business days, we’re low on volunteers,” he said. “One out of three calls, our fire department has no volunteers show up, so we depend on our two paid people on staff to handle those calls, which disrupts Gary being able to do his inspections because he gets called away. He misses appointments because he’s out on calls.”
Ates and commissioners all discussed charging a fee for re-inspections to help recoup come of HISID’s costs and working with the city to try to add such a fee to the ordinance.
“I think we ought to get reimbursed for the inspection fees by the city,” Pinkley said. “If we’re paying the bill for the fire department we certainly ought to get the money that they’re charging for [inspections].”
While the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act states that any decision made during executive session must be voted on in public after a vote to end executive session and return to the regular meeting, when the June 24 meeting resumed, commission chair Larry Stamps said a decision was already made.
“The executive session is concluded,” he said. “We came to the conclusion that we will leave the assistant chief as is. Also, we’re going to negotiate with the city to charge them for all the inspections that are being required to be done on the shortterm rental properties and all that kind of stuff and ask them to pay for those inspections, whether or not they recoup the money through fees or they charge or whatever.
“We can’t afford the overtime that is being required. We are also going to encourage the chief to pass out the inspections. He’s got three people that are capable of doing the inspections and one that is doing them. We are going to request that he spread that out a little bit so that the overtime is done away with.”
The commission did not vote to conclude the executive session, nor was any vote taken in public on the decisions that Stamps announced.
“I want to make one clarification,” Sarratt said. “You said we’re going to leave him as is, and as is is putting him on salary for $60,000 a year. Because as is now is that he’s hourly.”
