A bare bones budget has forced Liberty Township to keep a smaller number of firefighters to man their fire stations.
And this past weekend, the township had to somehow answer two ambulance calls and two fire calls all within one hour with just three people on duty.
The staffing is becoming a major concern among firefighter union members.
Liberty was able to get help from Hubbard and Vienna on the calls in question on Saturday, but what if these turned into full blown fire calls? That's what concerning Liberty firefighters.
Liberty Firefighter Lt. Phil Lucarell, said, "Seconds do matter, minutes matter and when you're waiting for back up, that's maybe 15 minutes away, you could be by yourself for 15 minutes. That's a scary place."
Liberty Township Trustees know about these concerns, but say they cannot raise taxes because the township already has the highest taxes in the county and they are in fiscal caution.
As a result, they say the fire department needs to stay within their budget.
Trustee Jodi Stoyak said they can't afford what they spent in 2015. "Last year some of our firefighters were making $20,000+ in overtime costs and that was really putting a strain on our budget. We just need to conserve and utilize our part time employees when we can and try to the best with what we have so we don't have to lay off employees."
Stoyak says the one thing they may do to save money is close their Belmont Avenue station which would reduce repair costs.