County Executive Culver Makes Budget Amendment to Fund Company N - WBOC-TV 16, Delmarvas News Leader, FOX 21 -

SALISBURY, Md.- Wicomico County Executive Bob Culver says he wants to make a budget amendment to fund Salisbury Fire Company No. 1, which is made up of a group of volunteer firefighters separating from the Salisbury Fire Department.

At Tuesday nights County Council meeting, Culver said that this amendment would include Company No. 1 and if approved would provide funding of about $400,000.

"With the changes that have been made with the [Wicomico County Fire] Chief's Association in the last week and the support that we have tonight, we are going to ask for a budget amendment to be made to our current budget that has been submitted to the council," Culver said. "This is to recognize this group of volunteers to become a full fledged volunteer station."

Chief of Company No. 1 Cory Pollidore said that this is another step in the right direction.

"This has really been the battle of climbing Mount Everest," he said. "Some people are successful at it and some people aren't. So far we've been successful at climbing this mountain with the support of the county executive doing a budget amendment to include us. Now, we just have to seek and ensure that we're going to get the support of the county council."

But, that support might not be there. County Council President John Cannon said the council has a lot of unanswered questions. One of which, is where they're going to get this money from.

"I think that council is reluctant to arbitrarily approve $400,000 in expenses if we're not exactly sure what it involves," Cannon said.

The county has about a month until the budget needs to be finalized, so until then the council said it needs more specifics about where Company No. 1 is going to be and the exact territory they will be serving.