ELECTIONS: Do You Have a Fire Levy on Your Ballot? (RUTH PETERSON)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ruth Peterson is a Republican precinct committee officer in Lewis County who writes on government and politics and is generously allowing us to share her writings here. You can subscribe to Ruth’s mailing list by contacting her at BoistfortPCO@gmail.com.

While Mrs. Peterson is writing generally about fire levies around the state (and using an example from Lewis County), we are posting this because the points she makes are pertinent to the fire levies that will be on Island County ballots in November 2023. The Voter Interest Project does not endorse or oppose ballot measures; the opinions expressed below are solely those of Mrs. Peterson.

Do You Have a Fire Levy on Your Ballot?

What you need to know before you vote

There are many fire district levies on the ballot around the state on Tuesday night. Rural areas in particular are struggling to maintain fire and emergency medical services for their citizens. If you have a fire, fall, car accident, stroke, or heart attack, it’s the members of the fire department who come to help. Or do they? Sometimes a fire department struggles to have the equipment and personnel to be there when they are needed.

Every fire district has control over the decisions they make spending money, and very often, they have to make decisions that reduce their ability to provide services to the people of the community. Again, this is especially true in the rural districts. There are also two types of levies that might appear on the ballot, and very few people know the difference between them. One is a fire levy and the other is an EMS (Emergency Medical Services) levy. An EMS levy is used to fund the Aid Cars, EMT, and Medic services. None of the funding collected for EMS can be used for the firefighting side of your district, but you can use fire levy funding for medical services. Some districts have both Fire and EMS levies, but some districts pay for the EMS side out of the fire levy. Make sure you know what the case is for your fire district and understand what levy you are being asked to vote on.

How can you tell if your district truly needs the money they are asking for? Here are some questions you need to ask. As an illustration, I will use an actual fire district that I know about, Lewis County Fire District 5 (LCFD 5), which encompasses the Napavine area.

1. Does your fire district get any funding from sales tax, or is it all from property taxes? Almost all rural fire departments are funded by property taxes alone. There is no funding from the state or the federal government, except for occasional grants. I’ll address that issue further on. Fire districts may charge for transports to the hospital, but every other dollar comes from property taxes. Everything from fire engines to bunker gear and training costs must be paid from that source. Obviously, if the funding is not sufficient, your fire service will suffer. There are communities that do not have the resources to be able to respond to all their calls. Often, it’s a neighboring district that has to come to the emergency. If you have had a heart attack or are in a roll-over car accident, those delayed response times are critical.
2. Compare to neighboring districts. How can you tell if you are paying too much without attending every fire commissioner meeting, studying the budget at length, and learning what increased needs will be in the future? One way is to look at the amount per thousand that neighboring district citizens pay. In the case of LCFD 5, they pay 50 cents per thousand. The district to the north pays 81 cents per thousand, and the district to the south pays $1.07 cents per thousand. That isn’t the only thing to look at, but it’s a clue that perhaps there needs to be an increase in levy rate to be able to sustain services.
3. Ask the state of the current equipment. How many fire engines and aid cars does your district have, and how many do they need. More importantly, how old are they and do they work well? I know of districts that have had aid cars and fire engines that continually break down because they are so old, sometimes when they are on the way to a call. Is that the case with your department? LCFD 5 has four fire engines, but only two are functional. They have fire stations located in the areas of their community that need them, but the fire engines in those stations don’t work. That is not a good recipe for a successful fire department. You must also look to the future. There should be a plan to replace an engine every 5-7 years, so the oldest one you have is only 25-30 years old. But without a plan to put money away for this purpose, you end up with broken down equipment.
4. Do you have the money to support your firefighters? Some districts have paid personnel, some are strictly volunteer, and some have both paid and volunteer. Obviously, if you are a paid district, you must have the funding for enough firefighters to man stations 24/7. There need to be enough paid personnel to man all the engines, with a minimum of 2 people at all times. It also requires funding to support your volunteers. Of course, you must outfit them with bunker gear, air packs, and other personal protective gear, but there is also training for each individual. But there is also the consideration of the equipment you have and how well that equipment runs. To recruit a volunteer but then to have them run fire and aid rigs that break down all the time is not a way to keep a volunteer enthused about staying. These are people who are willing to get up in the middle of the night or from their Thanksgiving dinner to take care of their neighbors. The community should be willing to provide them with the equipment necessary to do the job and have pride in the department for which they are giving up their sleep, family, and free time.
5. If you own a home, you pay homeowners insurance. Many people don’t pay attention to this issue, as it might be a part of a mortgage payment or because they don’t understand how their fire service affects the cost of insuring your home. There is an agency call the Service and Ratings Bureau. They come out and judge your fire department. They look at everything, including equipment, personnel, training, and even placement of fire hydrants. They have a score of 1-10 where 1 is the best of everything and 10 means there is no recognized fire service at all. What is your home’s number. If you live near a fully staffed fire station with functional equipment and live across the street from a fire hydrant, you may have a rating of 3 or 4. If you live in an outlying area where there are no hydrants and no volunteers to staff the fire station that might be down the street from you, the rating might be an 8 or 9. Your insurance rates are based on that rating, and it could end up costing you far more to have inferior fire service than paying for a levy. You would actually save money by having a levy that would adequately fund your area fire station. A big plus is that you would actually have faster service if, God forbid, you should ever have need of it.
6. What about grants or impact fees from sudden growth? Many people feel that their local fire service should be funded using grants or impact fees. This is an absolutely valid expectation, but there are some serious down-sides that need to be taken into consideration. For example, if there is new growth in an area that might require a ladder truck, you could levy an impact fee on the new businesses for a new ladder truck or try to get a grant that would pay for one. However, you need a crew that is trained to use a ladder truck. The crew manning that truck needs to be available 24/7, which pencils out to nine firefighters, plus a few others to cover because of vacations and sick leave. The salary and benefits for that crew would need to be covered years in the future. Impact fees and grants do not cover that. Another example is using a grant to buy a fire truck. Just to replace a set of tires on a fire truck is about $6,000. They are $800 each and there are 10 wheels on most rural fire engines. There are also grants to employ an extra firefighter or two. These grants usually expire after a few years, but the strings attached require that you continue to employ those firefighters. All grants come with strings, and sometimes the strings are not supported by the funding available.

Obviously, there is a lot to consider if you are faced with a vote on a fire levy. Just be aware of all the issues involved. Call your commissioners or the local chief and ask questions about their needs. They often have open houses to discuss why they are asking for the voters to approve of their levy. The sad fact is that few people bother to show up, so they have no idea why they should vote either way. It is up to you, as a citizen, to become informed. There are people out there willing to talk to you, but you have to make the effort, as well.