Tourism in Hocking Hills has soared in recent years, but funding for the region’s emergency services has not.
Instead, local fire departments have been left to respond to rising numbers of emergency calls with stagnant levels of funding and staffing.
A recent change in state law could help.
Amanda Pirani with Report for America and WOUB in Athens has been reporting on the change, and joined the Ohio Newsroom to discuss.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
On emergency services challenges in Hocking Hills
“Since 2020, we've really seen the number of tourists visiting the Hocking Hills skyrocket. The last estimate I received from the tourism bureau put the average annual visitor number around 4 million per year. But the permanent population of taxpayers in Hocking County hasn't really changed significantly since the early 2000s. It's at about 20,000 [people] in the county. What that means is we're not seeing a significant jump in the number of people funding emergency services, but there is this new spike in demand.
“The Logan Fire Department is also in a unique position because it's the closest fire service to the Hocking Hills, but it's also the only full-time fire service in the county. So, they're often the first called when there's emergencies in the Wayne National Forest or in the Hocking Hills. But they’re still a city service primarily funded by those taxpayers, so that's a particular challenge for them as well.”
On a new avenue for funding public safety
“To talk about this change, I think it's helpful to first talk about the lodging tax. Like it sounds, the lodging tax is a tax on a tourist hotel, short-term rental or other stay. It's the primary way that a local government is generating revenue from visitors, and that tax is split between the local subdivision, the township, the village or the city where a tourist is staying, and the county tourism bureau. State law used to say that the county tourism bureau could only spend that funding on its work to promote tourism. But at the end of 2025, a change was passed in the biannual budget bill that gave those bureaus more flexibility to spend some of their lodging tax revenue on things like infrastructure and public safety.
“In Hocking County, that led to the creation of the Tourism Impact Emergency Services Grant, also called the TIES grant. That was $25,000 for organizations involved in emergency responses, and they just distributed the first round of funding last month. When talking about that grant, it's important to understand that in this part of Ohio, most subdivisions don't have emergency services. They just don't have the tax base to fund those. So in the case of the Hocking Hills, that area is often served by county level departments like county EMS. Those agencies weren't getting lodging tax that local subdivisions receive when tourists stay there. So that's why the change allowing those county services to receive some of those lodging tax funds was a big deal for them.”
On first responders’ reactions
“What I've heard in my conversations with Hocking County EMS and the Logan Fire Department was that they were really appreciative of the change and just how quickly the tourism bureau moved to make funding available. That's allowed them to invest in new equipment that will improve their ability to make rescues. But it's not going to – at least in this first round of funding – solve their biggest problem, which they described as staffing.
“Both departments said they ultimately need more people on the ground to ensure that they can meet the demand that they're seeing. Logan Fire Chief Chris Maley said the department has faced instances where they're getting a call and all their available staff is already dispatched, so that's a safety concern for them. Maley said it's hard to know if more funding alone will solve that problem. Departments are competing with larger salary offers in cities like Columbus, but he theorized it might also be more difficult to attract new hires to a more rural area like Logan.”
On funding challenges across Ohio
“Generally speaking, [Hocking Hills] is certainly not the only area, at least in this part of the state, facing challenges when it comes to their emergency services. It's definitely common to see county-level services tasked with covering a really large geographical area, because as I said, we have a lot of small communities that just don't have their own emergency services.
“I think we're also in a moment where passing new levies can be really challenging. Property owners feel like they're already strained, and we've seen a statewide movement to abolish property taxes come from that.
“There's also the fact that rural counties have a much smaller tax base, meaning you have to ask voters for that much more to garner adequate funding. When reporting for another story, I spoke with a few government officials in Rutland and Washington Township that said they'll be looking at less local police capacity because their levies failed in November. So that's definitely a challenge for places outside the Hocking Hills. But I think the situation of Hocking County is obviously unique in that I don't think we have any other place in the region where millions of people are coming through annually and placing that scale of demand on emergency services.”
