Osceola County commissioners Monday tentatively decided not to change the way fire fees are assessed for the coming fiscal year.

Commissioners rejected a proposed method of calculating fees based on square footage and fire risk, instead opting for the current method – with a tweak for agricultural and vacant land –  based on broad property use categories, such as residential, industrial/warehouse, commercial, institutional or short-term rental and square footage.

Commissioners also delayed a decision whether to buy down fees for certain classes of property, including commercial and institutional. Last year, the county bought down fees to the tune of $4 million.

Commissioners also did not take action on setting Osceola County Fire Rescue's budget, where cuts of either $1.4 million or $2.9 million were discussed in order to balance the department’s 2010-11 fiscal year budget without dramatically raising fire fees.

Rich Collins, fire chief, said the larger cut would force the layoff of as many as 56 firefighters and the closing of fire stations, result in longer response times and would bring higher fire ratings and thus higher insurance costs for some communities, including Harmony, where two fire stations would be consolidated into one.

See Saturday's newspaper for a more extensive article on the fire fee proposal.