The Eagle River Fire Protection District Board of Directors passed two resolutions at its August 16 Board Meeting: the first approving ballot language to again ask its voters for a mill levy increase in the upcoming November election, and the second urging voters to approve the ballot measure. A similar ballot question failed in the district’s November 2011 election.
According to the district’s independent financial analyst, Stan Bernstein, the annual impact of the mill levy is as follows:
3.77 Mill Levy Impact per $100,000 of Assessed Value (AV) for Residential and Commercial Properties
Property Type Monthly Cost* Annual Cost*
Residential $2.45 $29.37
Commercial $8.92 $107.01
*Cost per $100,000 of a property’s assessed value
“We have no choice but to bring this question back to the voters. In order to continue providing the level of service our constituents expect, we need this mill levy. If it doesn’t pass, two stations will close permanently in 2014. It’s that simple.
“We’ve reduced expenses dramatically, cutting 70% of our administrative staff, and have no resources to finance essential equipment such as additional wild land response vehicles. In 2012, we will have spent almost a quarter of the wildfire response reserve to fund operations, and we still need to close stations intermittently. That reserve took us five years to build and was funded by careful planning and the conscious deferral of necessary equipment purchases and of salary increases for the last three years. The drought conditions and significantly heightened wildfire risks of this summer have highlighted the need to rebuild our resources,” said Jennifer Cartmell Hays, the Chair of the District’s Board of Directors.
Rolling station closures were instituted effective April 1, 2012, with the Board of Director’s decision to eliminate overtime in an effort to more closely match expenses to its reduced revenue base following the failure of the November 2011 ballot question. Even with this significant expense reduction, in 2012 the District is estimating that it will operate with a deficit of almost $900,000.
The unprecedented drop in Eagle County property values is the main reason for the district’s budgetary woes. Since ERFPD depends largely on property tax revenue – 94% of its revenue in past years is from this source – its property tax revenues have declined by $1,724,913 since the last value assessment in 2010. Another 20% decrease in assessed value is anticipated for 2014, a reduction that would cause additional deterioration in service levels.
“We were lucky we didn’t have a wildfire this year similar to that experienced by Colorado Springs,” said Cartmell Hays, “and despite the recent rains, drought conditions persist. The Chambertin fire and the semi-truck rollover utilized every resource in our department, reinforcing the urgency of approving this ballot question.”