The Port Townsend City Council on Monday voted unanimously in favor of negotiating a pre-annexation agreement with Jefferson County Fire Protection District 1.

East Jefferson Fire Rescue (EJFR) is the business name for Jefferson County Fire Protection District 1. The fire district and the city are two separate entities, and city and EJFR officials say that merging the city with the EJFR district would improve efficiency.

City Manager David Timmons said the pre-annexation agreement is similar to a prenuptial agreement prior to marriage. He said most of the work has long been completed.

“We’ve actually functionally consolidated already,” Timmons said, noting that assets and employees were transferred years ago to EJFR.

“Now what we’re focusing on is governance and the taxing structure,” Timmons said.

The annexation issue goes to a vote in August 2018.

NO CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT

Bill Beezley, public information officer for EJFR, said the city disbanded its fire department in 2007 and since then, EJFR has been providing fire and EMS services to the city via a contract.

As part of the agreement, former Fire District 6 and the city effectively merged with EJFR.

Over the past 10 years, the deal has “been going extremely well,” Beezley said.

Beezley added that the 2007 decision was a good financial move for the city.

“The cost for the city to reconstitute a fire department is prohibitive. It’s hugely time consuming. It’s more costly than the contract we’re providing today.

“All of the fire department personnel are employed by East Jefferson Fire Rescue, and all assets and infrastructure, including the Uptown fire station, belong to us … the people who work there are our employees. All the apparatus, the fire engines, the ambulances – they’re all owned by East Jefferson Fire Rescue.

“There are still people in the city that don’t understand that there’s not a Port Townsend Fire Department. Hasn’t been for a decade,” Beezley said.

EFFICIENCIES GAINED

Beezley said the city and the fire district have intended to merge for years and that such a move mirrors a trend that’s been happening across industries and fire services across the state.

“From an operations perspective … we’ve got efficiencies from being combined together,” Beezley said.

In the past decade, the area has gone from three fire departments with three fire chiefs and three administration staffs to just one: EJFR. Economies of scale, consolidated training and common equipment standards boost efficiency, Beezley said.

Beezley said the boundary of Fire District 1 begins at the end of PT city limits and runs down to State Route 104. Port Ludlow (Fire District 3) and Discovery Bay (Fire District 5) are other boundary limits for Fire District 1, he said.

EJFR operates seamlessly within the city, Beezley said, and offers the same level of service in both the city and the fire district.

But Beezley said the fire district and the city, “from a funding perspective, we’re still separate and distinct,” which complicates voting on fire issues and complicates payments, he said.

Additional complications include two different budget processes: one for the fire district and one for the city.

Taxpayers in the city and in the fire district happen to have nearly the same populations: Approximately 10,000 in the city and about 11,000 in the fire district, for a total of 21,000. The two areas also pay comparable amounts in taxes for the fire and EMS services.

By merging, the “tax flow” of payments from taxpayers to EJFR would be simpler. At present, city taxpayers pay the city, which then pays the county, which then pays EJFR. But if annexation is approved, fire and EMS tax funds would skip the city step and go directly to the county, and then to EJFR.

FUNDING A ‘HAIRBALL’

Beezley said EJFR’s $6.9 million budget is shared roughly 50/50 between taxpayers in the city and taxpayers in the fire district.

“It’s a hairball trying to get the funding level accurate, and if we just came together and did it with one number, with one group, with one vote, it’s a lot cleaner, it’s a lot simpler,” Beezley said.

Beezley said the annexation vote is set for August 2018 to allow time to educate the public about the vote.

“We want to take the time to educate the community so they understand why we want to do this,” Beezley said.

If approved, annexation would be effective in 2020.

EJFR provides service nearly equally among city and fire district residents, Beezley said.

“Historically, the city’s been just a fraction over 50 percent. [The city] population is a little bit less, but they have a couple concentrations of assisted living and nursing homes, and those are high-call volume locations for us,” Beezley said.

LEVY RATE

The levy rate for EJFR is determined by dividing the $6.9 million into the assessed value of the city and of the properties in the fire district.

As a result of this, when property values increase, the levy rate goes down. If property values go down, the levy rate goes up. Regardless, the amount paid to EJFR remains the same, he said.

According to county assessor documents, the levy rate for fire district is $1.33 per $1,000 assessed value.

Since the 2008 recession ended, housing values have gone up, Beezley said.

In “the city and the district, all the houses are becoming more valuable again. But it’s happening faster in the city. The city properties are appreciating at a more rapid rate than in the district,” and thus the rate that city residents pay and that fire district residents pay is now different.

Beezley said the city rate is a little less, and would have to undergo a onetime bump upward to make it match the fire district rate, should annexation be approved.

The maximum this levy can be is $1.50 per $1,000 assessed value.

The EMS levy, which is separate from the fire levy, is maxed out at 50 cents per $1,000 assessed value.

Beezley said the benefits of annexation include a single tax rate that applies to all properties in the district (which would then include the city).

CITY PAYS ABOUT $900,000

The city currently allocates about $900,000 annually to pay EJFR for fire service, Timmons said. If annexation is approved, the city would still collect that $900,000 from the city unless the City Council votes to lower the levy rate.

If the levy rate is unchanged, that means the city has $900,000 available in the general fund. The city is to hold community meetings to hash out the details of what this money might be used for.

Timmons said the community meetings would be about community values and needs, about how city finances work, and about the choices and options of what to do with the money.

Timmons said one option is that the $900,000 becomes “banked capacity” and part of the general fund for the city to allocate, possibly earmarked for specific purposes.

The city currently collects taxes for fire and EMS via its general obligation levy, Beezley said.

SERVES 21,191

According to EJFR documents, EJFR serves 21,191 people and has an operating cost of $6.9 million. It has 30 employees and an ISO fire insurance rating of 5.

EJFR handled 4,501 total calls last year, a number that Beezley expects to increase to more than 4,700 in 2017.

EJFR has six fire stations, three of which are staffed full-time.

Beezley said about 80 percent of EJFR calls are for EMS.

“Fires actually make up a small fraction of our overall call volume – less than 5 percent per year,” Beezley said. The rest of the calls include false alarms, car crashes, water rescues. But no cat rescues.

“We don’t do cats in trees anymore,” Beezley said.

EFJR has had 4,240 calls to date for 2017, including 2,655 calls in the city and 1,370 calls in the fire district.

CITY GETS A VOTE

Presently, the city has three council members on a joint board with three elected fire commissioners. However, the City Council member’s role on that board is only advisory and that member has no official vote on EJFR policy.

If annexation is approved, the EJFR board would increase from three members to five, with two of those from the city, two from the fire district and one at-large representative.

IN FAVOR

City Council member Michelle Sandoval said that if annexation were to be voted down, the city would be “in a pickle.”

Sandoval said residents need to be made aware of the history of fire service as it relates to the city “because there will be misinformation and there will be people who think that we can go backwards [to having a city-owned and -operated fire department].”

“We see it every single day: the mistrust of government. The lack of information. The lack of history, particularly in this town where there’s so many newcomers. They don’t know the history and that we are, in fact, acting as if we are consolidated,” Sandoval said.

Sandoval recalled how the city fire levy failed in 2011, resulting in the city having to pay enough money to EJFR to pay for a fire truck.

“I want to make sure we don’t get to that situation again,” Sandoval said.