by Toby Cooper
Special to the Sounder
The Orcas Board of Fire Commissioners held a special meeting on Thursday, Aug. 10, to consider their options following the decisive defeat of the proposed Levy Lid Lift nine days earlier. The Board was joined by Interim Chief Holly vanSchaick and about two dozen online and in-person attendees.
The unpopular ballot measure would have effectively raised the Fire Department’s component of Orcas property taxes by nearly 83 percent. With voters rejecting their measure by a lopsided 77 percent negative vote and with the one incumbent commissioner on the primary ballot edged out by two challengers, the Board seemed poised to take a deep breath and move forward cautiously.
When vanSchaick was asked for her advice, she did not hesitate. She noted that the Board needs to fulfill its obligation to fully fund the Fire Department’s operations and capital needs, but at the same time, the weighty “no” vote, she felt, “sends a message” the Board cannot afford to ignore.
She offered two specific suggestions. First, she urged the Board to re-submit the ballot measure for the November election with one modification, namely to include a sunset provision such that the new levy rate of $1.06 per $1000 of assessed property value would end after six years, instead of the open-ended time frame embedded in the current proposal.
Before the Board can decide on the change, the County Prosecutor must approve the language.
Second, vanSchaick placed before the Board a 2024 budget plan that provides the best possible service level to the community, given the defeat of the August measure and would continue to do so even if the second ballot measure were to fail in November.
In essence, if a revised ballot measure passes in November, new money would become available starting in April 2024.
If the ballot measure fails in November and the Board is forced to seek another ballot measure in November 2024, new money would become available starting in April 2025.
For this budget plan to work, vanSchaick contemplates three cuts in service: eliminate three, full-time, paid EMT positions; defer replacement of an aging but still-serviceable fire engine; and defer a planned building (roofing) upgrade.
If the November 2023 measure passes, these cuts would be restored.
As a final footnote to the austerity budget, vanSchaick notes that the contracted purchase of a new ambulance cannot now be canceled, but that once delivered, the new ambulance could be used as collateral for a loan if stopgap funding were needed in 2024.
Inevitably, the reduced service levels will weigh on the community, according to vanSchaick. Her counter to that reduction is to foster “teamwork at all levels” of the Fire Department. “In fact,” she says, “a good outcome in the work we do is not a function of high-performance individuals, but rather is a function of high-performance team dynamics.”
The Board recognized that it cannot make decisions on the ballot measure modifications until the County Prosecutor approves the language. Accordingly, a decision meeting has been scheduled for Monday, August 14 – after the press deadline for this report.
