The four-year maintenance and operation levy that accounts for almost half of West Thurston Regional Fire Authority’s funding expires this year.
Rather than ask voters to renew the levy at the current 83 cent rate, the fire authority is proposing a higher rate to account for increasing call volumes across the district putting stress on its existing personnel.
“It's a very unique opportunity for us to allow the citizens to dictate what their service levels are,” West Thurston Operations Chief Robert Scott said of the Aug. 2 election. “If they want to have a fast, quick response like we've been maintaining and want to improve, there’s a dollar cost associated with that.”
The West Thurston Regional Fire Authority is made up of two fire districts: District 1, Rochester, and District 11, Littlerock, for a total coverage area of 58 square miles in southwest Thurston County. The levy proposal itself is split into two ballot items, one for each district encompassed by West Thurston, but both proposals ask for the same rates: approximately $1.71 for 2023, $1.63 for 2024, $1.55 for 2025 and $1.48 for 2026.
Each proposal requires a 60% supermajority to pass, but based on feedback from a nine-member citizen advisory group, the Fire Authority’s leadership feels confident asking voters to increase funding for fire response.
The board calculated the proposed rates based on projected personnel costs and projected facility and apparatus maintenance costs, West Thurston Interim Fire Chief Rob Smith said.
“It encompasses everything here to operate a fire department efficiently,” Smith said.
If the levy is approved, West Thurston would be able to upgrade infrastructure in its stations and apparatus as needed and add six additional firefighters to its 31-firefighter roster, allowing West Thurston to maintain its current level of service as call volumes continue to increase.
West Thurston’s total call volume across its coverage area has increased 40% over the last nine years, according to Smith. Roughly 36% of the time, West Thurston is managing two incidents at a time, “and what that does is that depletes our existing on-duty resources. And it requires us to reach out to other departments to respond in our place,” Smith said.
Mutual aid agreements allow other departments to respond to calls within West Thurston’s coverage area as needed, but it usually takes longer for those outside resources to arrive. Those extra minutes could be catastrophic when dealing with a catastrophic medical event or fast-growing fire.
“Those minutes are the difference between life and death in many cases, and we have proof of that quick response (being) the difference between life and death,” Scott said.
West Thurston aims to respond to a 911 call within eight minutes, in line with the American Heart Association’s guidance for responding to cardiac arrests.
“We measure our success based on our ability to respond quickly, to make a difference,” Smith said.
And they get feedback on their work daily, Scott said.
“We live in the community so we see people at the grocery store, see them at the hardware store, and they have to have trust in us. So that’s why we rely on our citizenry to assist us in making some of these large decisions,” he said.
The fire authority’s leadership has generally received a positive response from the community regarding the levy proposal, Smith said, though the proposal has been met with some opposition.
“I think folks that question, how can we not operate on you know, just a couple pennies more, really don't have a good understanding of the public safety programs and what it all entails,” Scott said.
The expiring levy accounts for almost 50% of West Thurston’s funding. If the levy proposals fail, the fire authority expects it will have to close two of its stations and lay off half of its personnel before the end of the year.
“It’s not a fear factor … We don’t like that kind of mentality, but there’s a reality to it that has to be noted that this is serious stuff,” Scott said.
Considering how much West Thurston residents’ homeowners insurance rates would go up if the fire authority’s protection rating falls due to diminished service levels, Scott said the levy “should be a cost neutral” for residents whether it passes or fails.
But without the levy, West Thurston residents would also have to deal with slower response times to 911 calls, higher rates for ambulance service and the risk that the region would be under-equipped to handle another major wildfire like the Scatter Creek Fire in 2021 or the Bordeaux Fire in 2020.
“What they're paying there could be invested now to provide that level of protection for not just the individual, but the community,” Scott said. “That’s really what we need to look at, is people need to understand this is not so much an individual decision, this is a community decision because everyone has to be on board. If everyone says, ‘Yeah, we can support this and move forward,’ then everybody benefits from it.”
To view the levy proposals in full, visit https://www.thurstoncountywa.gov/auditor/Pages/elections-current-election.aspx.
Visit https://www.westthurstonfire.org/ for more information on the fire authority.
