Fire District 8 asks voters for funds

Residents of suburban areas south of Spokane Valley will vote April 22 on a Fire District 8 request for money to improve service.

Fire commissioners want voters to lift the district’s property tax ceiling so they can provide paramedic service and ensure there are always two full-time firefighters at every station.

Chief Bill Walkup said commissioners also want to establish an equipment replacement fund so the district doesn’t need to float bond measures when it needs new trucks or other capital equipment. He said the fund would require about $276,000 a year.

If the measure passes, it would restore the tax rate of $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value that voters established in 1985. Budget-limiting Initiative 747 has driven Fire District 8’s levy rate down to $1.126. So the lid lift would cost voters 37.4 cents per $1,000 until Initiative 747 drives the rate down again. The initial annual cost would be $74.80 for the owner of a $200,000 home.

Voters previously lifted the district’s levy lid in 2005.

Unlike many fire districts, Walkup said, District 8 doesn’t supplement its regular tax levy with special levies. So even at its full $1.50 rate, “we’re on the low side,” he said.

Walkup said the Spokane Valley Fire Department’s overall levy rate this year is $2.88; Fire District 9, north of Spokane and Spokane Valley, collects $2.23 per $1,000; and Fire District 10, surrounding Airway Heights, gets $1.88.

District 8’s planned improvements are part of a “customer-centered strategic plan” that was completed in 2003, Walkup said.

He said introduction of “advanced life support” service is the top priority, a program officials already are moving to establish. The district has advertised for four experienced paramedic-firefighters so “we can turn the key on immediately,” Walkup said.

Paramedics, in consultation with doctors, could provide some medicines and advanced life-saving procedures that aren’t allowed under the “basic life support” district firefighters now provide.

Including equipment, the paramedic program is expected to cost about $400,000 a year, Walkup said.

The district’s strategic plan also called for a study of long-term staffing needs.

Walkup said the study showed the district needs to hire four to five more full-time firefighters if it is to continue its system of supplementing full-time, permanent firefighters with temporary, hourly employees, volunteers who work shifts at fire stations, and “resident firefighters” who generally are college interns.

More guaranteed manpower is needed to ensure that the first crews to arrive at fires are able to begin work immediately, Walkup said. That’s because state safety regulations say firefighters must enter burning buildings in pairs, and each pair inside the building requires another pair outside.

District officials want two “career” firefighters on duty at each of four stations in each of three daily shifts.

“That’s probably as critical a part of this as anything,” Walkup said.

However, he said implementation probably would be spread over a couple of years.

When the four new paramedics are hired, District 8 will have 21 career firefighters. The rest of the district’s 125 firefighters are traditional volunteers, temporary employees, interns and volunteers who staff the stations as though they were paid.

The district staff also includes Walkup, three deputy chiefs, a training chief, two clerical workers and a maintenance worker.

The district serves 110 square miles south of Spokane and Spokane Valley, including Moran and Glenrose prairies, Hangman Valley, Valleyford, part of Freeman, Mica and the Ponderosa, Painted Hills and Saltese areas.