Fire board approves raises for firefighters

Holley-Navarre Fire District employees, including Chief Ron Norton, will get a 5-percent pay raise beginning Oct. 1.

The district’s Board of Fire Commissioners approved a $1.7 million budget for 2010-2011 at its meeting Monday. The budget prepared by Norton included the firefighters’ and administrative assistants’ raises, but the board controls his salary.

“I took the liberty of including that in the (draft) budget,”  Norton said when Commissioner J.E. Blankenship asked whether the district could afford to increase Norton’s pay to $55,000 per year.

For more on this story, check out the Aug. 26 edition of the Navarre Press, or subscribe online.