By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The budget committee for the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District on Monday approved a spending plan of $2.4 million for 2019-20, but one artificially inflated by having to account for the possible sale of its main station in downtown Yachats.
The actual operating budget proposed by district administrator Franke Petrick is $1.42 million, up from the current fiscal year budget of $1.12 million. Almost all of that increase comes from anticipated personnel costs – the addition of another firefighter and increases to wages and benefits expected to come after it negotiates its first firefighter union contract.
The district expects to move into its new station on the north edge of Yachats in late September. It has started the process of getting the zoning changed for its downtown station and an adjacent small house to allow for commercial or multi-family residential use.
Because of that, Petrick added $1 million to the proposed budget, but admitted to the budget committee there is really no estimate of what the 69-year-old building might sell for, if anything.
“I have no idea of the sale price,” she said.
If, or when it sells, board member Ed Hallahan said the proceeds would be put back into the district’s operating budget to be used for year-to-year expenses like additional personnel or equipment.
The 2019-20 budget includes $55,000 for a new firefighter, which Petrick wants to use to staff the station in the Yachats River valley. It hasn’t been staffed in several years.
“We have an obligation to have someone up at our east station,” she said. “That’s a goal we should be trying to reach.”
Fire insurance rates for properties in that area are based on being within five miles of a fire station.
The district currently has six paid firefighter/emergency medical technicians, down from the seven it had recently due to two departures and one new hire. Petrick also included money for a part-time EMT to help with staffing and overtime.
Another big boost to its budget will come in two years when $84,000 to $93,000 in yearly payments are finished on the six-acre property where the new fire station sits. The district has been paying for that property out of its operating budget rather than the $7.7 million bond approved by voters in 2016.
“It’s been taking a major chunk of our operating funds the past few years,” Petrick told the committee.
The district’s yearly operating budget comes from a permanent tax base and two voter-approved levies. The district’s permanent tax base, established in 1997, is 29 cents per $1,000. A levy approved last month carries a tax rate of 61 cents per $1,000 of assessed value and the district’s second operating levy is 59 cents per $1,000.
In total, the levies add up to a tax rate of $1.49 per $1,000 assessed property value or $372 a year on property assessed at $250,000.
The district has scheduled a public hearing on the budget for 10:30 a.m. Thursday, June 27, followed by a regular board meeting where it plans to adopt it.
In addition to regular board members, the budget committee is made up of Joanne Kittel, Tracy Altson, Cherei Capron, Jim Finlayson and Karl Evans.
