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A new Hocking County tourism grant hopes to address strains on emergency services
By: Amanda Pirani
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB/Report for America) — A new grant will help give Hocking County’s emergency services a boost in an effort to help address tourism strains.
Distributed for the first time this year, the Tourism Impact Emergency Services grant used lodging tax funds to provide 13 $25,000 grants to organizations in the county that support public safety.
Recipients included Hocking County EMS, the Logan Fire Department and Hocking Valley Community Hospital among others. The grants will help them pay for specialized training, new equipment and other response needs.
“It’s generally agreed that all of the emergency services have had an increase in runs,” said Hocking Hills Communications Director James Martin. “So that was why we wanted to get involved and be able to help alleviate some of those issues they were encountering.”
First responders said they are grateful for the support but warn it won’t be enough to address the demand they’re facing.
“We’ve set new records for the last five years in the amount of runs that we’ve taken per year,” said Logan Fire Chief Chris Maley. “The shortcomings are staffing, and frankly, other departments’ staffing.”
According to Martin, the Hocking County Tourism Association was only granted the ability to spend some of its funding on emergency services at the end of last year. That’s thanks to a change passed in the state’s 2026-2027 biannual budget.
State law now specifies that if a county has fewer than 100,000 people and brings in more than $500,000 a year in lodging tax, some of those funds can be reallocated to support infrastructure, economic development and public safety.
The TIES grant will be distributed twice a year, with the next cycle of applications due in April.
Spike in demand continues to pose challenge for county’s first responders
Because emergency services are typically funded by local levies, they haven’t seen increased income as tourism grows. A lodging tax is the primary source of revenue provided by tourists.
That tax is split between the local government where lodging is located, such as a village, township or city, and the county’s tourism association. The county government only retains what’s necessary to administer the lodging tax.
At the same time, many local governments in Hocking County don’t have emergency services, and rely on county-level EMS and sheriff teams.
Hocking County EMS Chief Bob Platz said TIES funding is important because the county’s population, including homeowners who pay local taxes, has not changed significantly in two decades. But tourism has soared since 2020.
He said his station received about 2,100 calls in 2005. In 2025, that number was a little over 4,650.
Despite that increased demand for services, Platz said staffing has remained largely unchanged.
That leads to longer response times, because there are cases when a call comes in but all available teams are already dispatched.
Maley said his team has also seen higher run numbers. While tourism growth is a contributing factor, he doesn’t believe it’s the only reason demand has increased.
He said part of the challenge is that his team serves not only the city of Logan but also supports other jurisdictions. That’s because the Logan Fire Department is the only full-time fire team in the county.
Many other areas of the county are unincorporated or lack the tax base for emergency services.
Maley said his team is also often the first called when there are emergencies in state parks or the Wayne National Forest.
Maley and Platz both said recruiting new employees has been a challenge in the last several years. Maley theorized that could be due to the location, or because his department can’t offer the same starting salary as a bigger city like Columbus.
“Tourism’s great,” Maley said. “You’re not going to hear me say too many things bad about it … It creates these local mom and pop shops and they do really well. But that’s not a great tax base for public safety.”
Platz said he’s put in a difficult position, where he’s not sure emergency services can wait for change, but he also doesn’t feel good about asking taxpayers for more funding when they’re already feeling strained.
He hopes in the future, public officials will be able to garner more funding from county tourism for emergency services.
“I love that people want to come here,” he said. “We just want to have the ability to keep up with the increase in run volume.”
Amanda Pirani is WOUB’s Report for America Journalist covering Economic Livelihood. For more information about Report for America, you can click here.