My department is headed over by our town board. They seem to think that we dont need to buy new gear or trucks or tools which isnt surprising. So our department has talked to some surrounding departments in our county about going into a fire territory. Thus taking us out of the town boards control and creating what i would believe to be much less of a headache. Also my state is trying to do away with township trustees and if this happens then the depatments will switch over to districts, which from what ive heard is a bad thing. So my question is to those of you who are allready in districts and territorys. I would like to no the pros and cons of both territorys and districts and anything that makes you think that one or the other is better.
Terminology can vary and I really don't see a difference between a territory nor district here. What you describe sounds similar for both and I don't know what your understanding of a district is, especially as to what you heard as a "bad thing".
My familiarity with a district is what you are describing as a territory, where several different departments combine into a district fire department. The controlling body for such a district would be a fire commission, but individual municipalities do not have control over the fire department within their borders. Basically it takes the individual politics out of the equation and all those who merge together are under one commission. Usually such a combination would become its own taxing entity and all municipalities involved would pay a fee for fire protection, thus changing the issue you have on hand already.
Some issues are that command structure can change, because you don't need say 5 different chiefs, or individual command structures, the departments typically become one command structure. Also departments can give up some of their individuality, so say if such and such dept promotes by seniority and the next by election, there would probably be one way of doing things.
I will recommend two individuals to talk with concerning both Fire Territories and Fire Districts. Chief of Princeton Fire Territory, located in Princeton, Indiana and Chief of Brownsburg Fire Department, located in Brownsburg, Indiana ( Near Indy). You can look up the following Indiana Code IC -36-8-11 for Fire Protection Districts and Indiana Code IC - 36-8-19 for Fire Protection Territiories.