By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Voters in the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District will have a substantial financial decision to make in November.
The fire district’s board voted unanimously – but not without some comment — Monday to ask voters to approve a new property tax levy to help pull the district out of its financial troubles.
The request is for $1.59 per $1,000 assessed property value – or $477 per year on property assessed at $300,000.
For it’s first year it would be in addition to the district’s current operating levies of 61 cents and 59 cents per $1,000 assessed property value, which combined with the district’s permanent tax base of 29 cents currently costs the owner of property assessed at $300,000 approximately $447 a year.
The district also has a bond that voters approved in 2016 to build the new fire station just north of Yachats that’s worth 68 cents per $1,000 assessed value. That costs the owner of property assessed at $300,000 just over $200 a year. But bond money can’t be used for year-to-year operating costs.
If voters approve the $1.59 levy in November, the current board intends to let the 59 cent levy expire in July 2023 – keeping it for one year after the new levy would take effect.
Board members are trying to pull the district out of a financial spiral that has been getting progressively worse the past three years as spending outpaces revenue. The district has been borrowing about $350,000 a year mid-way in its budget cycle to make ends meet before repaying the loan when property taxes come in each November.
The board hopes the sale of its former station in downtown Yachats will provide a one-time infusion cash if it sells for near its asking price of $550,000. But the city of Yachats owns one of the lots under the station and can claim 28 percent of the sale price, if it decides to do so.
Board member Ed Hallahan, who helped put the levy proposal together, said keeping the 59 cent levy until 2023 – one year after the $1.59 levy would take effect – will solve the district’s immediate money problems.
“The one year overlap is what’s going to get us out of our financial hole,” he said.
In approving the proposed tax levy Monday, the board did not take the advice of budget committee chair Joanne Kittel, who two weeks ago said the board should address three items before sending a levy to voters. Kittel’s suggested the board should justify having two administrators, examine the fire district’s subsidizing staffing for the nonprofit South Lincoln Ambulance for very little reimbursement, and to first see the impact on its finances of selling the old station.
Hallahan said board members would need to develop talking points and use all available resources to get information about the district and its issues out to voters before November.
“I think we need to do everything we can think of,” he said.
Board members Drew Tracy and Donald Tucker, who have been trying to get the board to look closer at the ambulance arrangement, reiterated Monday that it needs a fresh look. The ambulance nonprofit is controlled by district administrator Frankie Petrick, assistant administrator Shelby Knife, and three outside board members.
Ambulance calls make up the bulk of fire district responses, which puts two Yachats firefighter/paramedics on the ambulance. When they are on ambulance calls it takes them out of service if anything else occurs, which then requires a mutual aid response from Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue or Pacific West Ambulance, both in Waldport. All other fire districts in Lincoln County have Pacific West provide that initial ambulance response – but at fees nearly twice what South Lincoln Ambulance charges.
Tracy and Tucker also said the district needs to take a serious look at consolidation with Central Oregon Coast and the Seal Rock Fire Department, which currently have an agreement to share resources. Central Coast is also interested in a potential merger, but first with Seal Rock.
“That should be a part of our conversation,” Tracy said. “We need to look at increasing our service levels.”
“I absolutely agree,” Tucker said.
In other business Monday, the board:
- Approved a 2021-22 general fund budget of $1.97 million that includes money for six firefighter/paramedics, one less than currently authorized.
- During an executive session, reviewed details of an offer presented by its real estate agent, Chris Watkins of Newport, for its former station on West Second Street. In open session it made a counter offer $75,000 higher than what the prospective buyers proposed.
I think as a property owner it is ludicrous to continue to ask us, owners, to pay for continued mismanagement of our fire service, expenditures. The asked for levy, of approximately $1.59 per $1,000 of assessed value (average tax bill increase of $446) doesn’t sound like much but it is when you are looking at your total property tax, bill. People have voted in the recent past increases to/adding levies. One should ask themselves have you ever seen our property taxes go down? There are a lot of us in this community that are on fixed incomes and can not recoup these additional expenses. The owners of businesses and rentals can increase their prices/rents but the average property owner can’t. We will be stuck with these additional taxes and all other increases in the local/nationwide economy.
It’s ridiculous for them to ask for more property owners money. This is one reason we don’t have affordable housing in this State. It’s not greedy property owners it’s the greedy government. Sounds like Yachats fire needs to do what the rest of us have been forced to do and that is tighten their belts and go without.