Vote yes on Proposition 1 to establish an Olympia-Tumwater Regional Fire Authority | Opinion
City budgets are victims of a state law — originally a Tim Eyman initiative — that limits growth in property tax collections to 1 percent per year, an amount far below inflation. In Olympia and Tumwater, that means that essential services such as fire departments and police struggle to compete with potholes, parks, sidewalks, and everything else in ever-constricting budgets.
That’s a tough situation when a fire truck that cost $500,000 five years ago now costs a staggering $1.2 million.
Proposition 1, on the ballot that arrived in mailboxes this week, proposes to create an Olympia-Tumwater Regional Fire Authority (RFA) that would take fire departments out of the cities’ budgets. It provides a long-term solution to looming funding shortfalls, but no immediate improvements in service, no new fire stations and no new equipment — items that would make the proposal more palatable. Standing up this independent entity would be expensive and time-consuming, if approved.
It would be financed by a shift of some property tax revenue from the two cities, but also by a complicated Fire Benefit Charge which will in some instances be a regressive pseudo-tax that won’t be deductible on federal tax returns. It’s no wonder many voters are confused, and therefore opposed. This is not a perfect proposal. But it is still the right thing to do.
Fire department EMTs want to be able to respond to heart attacks within four minutes, and to other medical emergencies within six minutes. Fire department statistics show today’s averages hover around eight minutes. Both cities’ populations are growing fast, and more of us are old and at greater risk of medical emergencies. Without action, emergency response times will continue to rise.
Both cities currently have strong fire departments with good mutual aid agreements. But we need to keep them strong while also funding other city services.
The RFA proposal has shape-shifted several times as it was being drafted, further confusing the issue.
Up to 60 percent of the new RFA budget can come from a new Fire Benefit Charge, although RFA creators say it will begin much lower. An early draft could have made that fee higher for smaller houses more than larger, more expensive ones. The final draft fixed that flaw, but even now, the Fire Benefit Charge requires strong math skills to decipher, especially for business owners.
If you are a homeowner, you can look up what it will cost you at OlympiaTumwaterRFA.com, but first you have to go to the assessor’s website and look up your parcel number. An average-sized single-family home would pay anywhere from $380 to $450 a year.
That’s a number guaranteed to make most homeowners groan. And if you’re a renter, it’s impossible to know what portion of your landlord’s increase will be passed on to you.
None of us likes the idea of paying this new fee. We’ve just paid our federal taxes and those of us fortunate enough to own homes have just paid property taxes. This is the worst possible month to be asked for more.
But it’s our adult obligation to pay for what we need: fast, reliable service for fires and medical emergencies, competitive wages for firefighters, reliable equipment for fighting fires, enough well-maintained fire stations, and growth commensurate with our population. For many of us, this is the most important local service we receive.
An independent and separately financed fire authority, governed by an elected commission, will be directly accountable to voters. It will initially be governed by city council members, but all members will be elected by 2028.
None of the objections to this proposal are as important as achieving two long-term goals: sustainable, fast, and well-funded fire and emergency services that save lives, and breathing room in city budgets to meet other growing municipal needs.
No new agency design will be flawless, and all will have opponents. People who’ve been around a long time will recall that getting LOTT (Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater and Thurston County) to create our regional sewage treatment facility was wildly controversial, but can we imagine each jurisdiction trying to fulfill this function independently?
Regional collaboration is a sensible idea in an urban area that functions as one city in many ways already. So is paying for what we need to save lives. We recommend a yes vote on this proposition. Ballots are due on April 25.
