The city of Redmond and Deschutes County Rural Fire Protection District No. 1 have kicked off their exploration of the benefits and possible pitfalls of asking city voters to annex to the fire district.
Annexation would flip the current arrangement by transferring operation of the city fire department to the fire district. Currently, the fire district contracts with the city for fire and emergency medical services.
At the March 11 meeting Fire Chief Tim Moor presented the rural fire board a proposed outline of the research to be done, who was to do it and by when.The members of the team assembled to study the issue are: Interim City Manager Sharon Harris, Redmond City Councilor Ed Boero, Deschutes County Rural Fire Protection District No. 1 board members Gary Ollerenshaw and Steve Henderson, Fire Chief Tim Moor, city Finance Director Bryce DuPere, city Budget Analyst Jason Neff, rural district Finance Manager Melinda Nichols, and Jeff Puller, Redmond Fire and Rescue captain and president of firefighters' Local 3650.
The first question the team will attempt to answer is "Can you live with the resources that the current district tax rate of $1.75 per $1,000 of property value will produce?" Moor said. And for the city, "can it live with that amount gone and contributions to other funds from fire department eliminated?"
“Phase One becomes our decision-making tool,” Moor said. “If we can’t answer ‘yes’ to Phase One, we’re not gonna go to Phase Two.”
The two big concerns for the investigators, Moor said, are “Can we make it tax neutral? Can the city fill the hole when we leave?”
If the city were to annex to the fire district, property owners in the current fire district would continue to pay the $1.75/$1,000 tax rate. City property owners would pay the same amount to the fire district, but city property taxes would be reduced from $6.16/$1,000 to $4.41 to account for the fire department moving from the city.
Phase One will include analyzing budget and revenue projections for the next three- and five-year periods.If the results of the first phase show that the fire district can survive on the $1.75 tax rate and the city can survive without the contributions the fire department makes to funds in the city, such as the city manager’s office, finance and information services, the investigation team will move to Phase Two.
The second phase would focus on investigating in detail how the department would look if voters approved the annexation – organization structure, how assets and contracts would be transferred from city to district, the cost of employee benefits and any differences if provided by the fire district.
“It’s a good, right way to start,” said board member Gary Ollerenshaw.
On March 16, Moor said the exploration process has started.“We’re going to stick with the timeline. It’s really important that we get Phase 1 done by April 15. It will tell us if we can continue with the process. We want to keep moving, but we want to do due diligence to make sure that the city and the fire district can continue to provide the level of service that we do now,” he said.
Next Deschutes County Rural Fire Protection District No. 1 meeting is April 8.
-- story by Trish Pinkerton
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