CLARKSVILLE —
Residents and business owners in the town of Clarksville are eligible for lower insurance premiums thanks to a better rating awarded to the Clarksville Fire Department.
“I am very proud of the department,” Town Council President John Gilkey said. “They worked extremely hard to achieve that goal, and as that rating number goes down, insurance rates within the town should be adjusted accordingly by individual homeowners’ insurance companies.
“They’ve done a fantastic job at working very hard to achieve that goal.”
Clarksville Fire Chief Tom Upton announced at the regular meeting of the Clarksville Town Council on Monday that the department’s Public Protection Classification through the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, had improved from Class 5 to Class 4.
“For the citizens of Clarksville, depending on what insurance companies they go through, insurance companies recognize ISO for their fire protection [policies],” Upton said. “It also can help lower their insurance premiums that they have on their residences. And maybe not everyone will see that. It just depends on what insurance company that they have. But they could actually see a reduction in their insurance premiums.”
ISO evaluates fire departments on a rolling five-year schedule, scoring the departments on a 100-point rubric for their ability to receive and handle fire alarms, fire department staff and equipment, and ready access to water. Clarksville Fire scored a 68.94, just over a point off of a Class 3 rating.
Upton said there’s more work to be done before the next evaluation, but he said the Class 3 rating is within reach for the next ISO evaluation. The town scored just 2.56 points out of a possible nine for training, but the town council approved the hiring of a training coordinator Monday.
“The deputy chief currently does all of the training, pretty much, and with him having other duties to do, it’s hard to get in consistent training,” Upton said. “So with this training coordinator, we’ll be able to do training pretty much every day the guys are here and that will get us more hours of credit toward that credit for training.”
ISO requires fire department employees to receive 240 hours of training per year to get the maximum score of nine points. Upton said the benefits of becoming a Class 3 fire department are big for the town’s residents.
“One big benefit to the town is ... if we were a Class 3 in Clarksville, and there were new businesses that wanted to come to this area, we could pitch to those businesses, ‘With our Class 3 rating, your insurance premiums could actually be lower,’” Upton explained.
The department will promote a current full-time employee to the training position with an annual pay rate of about $49,000. A new full-time employee will be hired.
Upton encourages residents to call their insurance companies to find out about lower premiums as a result of the new ISO rating.
HYDROLOGY STUDY REVIEWED
The town council reviewed a hydrological study conducted on Cane Run and Mill Creek by Stantec at a work session Monday. The study will be used by the Jeffersonville-Clarksville Flood Control District as plans for Jeffersonville’s new wastewater treatment plant develop. Town representatives have expressed concern on the effects of additional wastewater in the two creeks on areas in Clarksville.
“Based on preliminary assessments that we were getting from staff, there were serious concerns about how much water was going to be coming into Clarksville, and what the impact of that water could be with regard to potential flooding,” Gilkey said.
The flood control district will use this study as it conducts its own hydrological study on a larger scale, Gilkey said.
“We’ll come together and find some kind of solution that we think is going to be beneficial to everyone,” Gilkey said. “Everyone is trying to work together to eliminate problems before they occur.”
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