(The Center Square) – The early summer heat shows no signs of letting up across the Pacific Northwest, and there’s no rain in sight.
That has fire managers on high alert and fire districts asking voters to do their part to help come Aug. 6, in the form of levy funding.
In Clark County, the primary ballot has several levy and bond measures for fire districts and city fire departments, including Fire District 3, which is asking voters for a levy lid lift which would increase property taxes.
“Washington state fire districts are limited to 1% increases annually, without a lid lift,” District 3 Fire Chief Scott Sorenson said.
District 3 serves a large chunk of central Clark County, including Battle Ground, Brush Prairie and Hockinson. The District 3 levy lid lift request, if approved, would have the owner of a $500,000 home, paying $750 a year, an increase of $170 a year from the current rate set at $1.16 per $1,000 of assessed home value.
“We ran our last lid lift in 2017 and that expired last year, so we’re back down to 1%,” Sorenson said.
Sorenson didn’t have the total dollar figure cost of the levy when asked about it on Friday.
“I’m not sure,” he told The Center Square. “I’d have to go back and look at budgets, which we do in November.”
Despite the population increase in the area, the chief says the department has not been able to hire any new personnel.
“In fact, we’ve lost two and have not been able to replace them, due to instability of the revenue, so we’re waiting to see how this goes before we commit to hiring those position back,” Sorenson told The Center Square.
“We run 70% medical on our calls, and one of things we want to accomplish with this levy lift is to get another ambulance available in emergencies where there isn’t one available due to system overload,” Sorenson explained. “The call volume is going up about 5% every year due to growth, and we’re not keeping up with that.”
Sorenson says personnel costs are taking an increasing bite out of their budget, especially due to rising medical premiums.
Another blow came with the recent closure of the Larch Correctional Facility, which used to provide inmate firefighters during wildfire season.
“DNR [Department of Natural Resources] is providing a 10-person crew for this area, and then I’ve been told if it’s severe, they’ll bring in contract crews, but that doesn’t replace the resource that we lost,” Sorenson noted.
The district ran the same levy lid request last year, and it failed, with 54% of voters rejecting the proposal.
“We do understand that people are struggling financially, so it’s up to the citizens to decide if they want to fund this or not,” said Sorenson. “If they don’t, then we’ll have to react to that and do our best to maintain services.”
He continued: “Last year we didn’t have a lot of voter participation, so that was one of the factors in deciding to run it again this year with more voters weighing in on this, but we don’t know how it’s going to go.”
The intense summer heat and dry conditions weigh on the fire chief.
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“Up until this heat wave, we were looking pretty good, but now it’s dried things out prematurely,” Sorenson said. “Hopefully we get some moisture between now and September, but we’ll see.”
Several other Clark County cities and fire districts are also asking voters to approve or increase levy funding, including Washougal, East County Fire and Rescue, and Clark-Cowlitz Fire and Rescue.
