||| FROM GREG AYERS |||
Look at your tax bill, not what OIFR is saying. What you are paying this year versus next is what matters to you. You don’t pay a levy you pay taxes. For you it is not a few pennies, or even a few dollars, it is HUNDREDS of DOLLARS, maybe even THOUSANDS of dollars. Think the difference between $500 and $900, a big number, not $1.05 or $1.06.
I have now seen a card from our fire department about their levy request where again they are being disingenuous. I say this as I do not want to say they are being dishonest, as theoretically they are not. Their numbers are intended to sound so small that you won’t event notice them, but they are not. But let’s do the math, not the theory, because it is the math that generates your tax bill.
The math. Find your tax bill. Look in the top right corner, in the box labeled “Distribution Summary”. One line towards the bottom is labeled “FIRE”. That is your fire tax this year, what you PAID. To calculate what your bill would have been with the new levy, take that number and multiply it by 1.83. Not theory, rather math. Paid $500 this year, would have paid $914, or $414 MORE. Paid $2000, $1660 more. HUNDREDS of dollars, THOUSANDS of dollars. I will say that until you get your house value next year, which could go up or down, you will not know the exact tax, but your tax will certainly increase by more than a cent, or even a few dollars, you must know it will go up by at least HUNDREDS of dollars. Think $100 NOT $0.01. Think $1000 NOT $1.06
One final thought – so why will you be paying HUNDREDS or THOUSDANDS more? Because the fire department budget has approximately doubled in recent years. This is the shiny object they are trying to distract you from. Let’s go back to having the commissioners involving the community in discussing what services the community wants and what is a fair price for those services. Please join me in voting against the fire levy so that we can engage in this discussion. It is worth more than a few cents.
Witnessed a single car accident at Moran State Park last month. Asked the nice lady if she was ok. She said she was fine. Just needed a tow truck to pull her back on the road. No big deal. I used to own Eastsound Towing. Easy squeezy. Got my business done in Olga and drove back thru the park a half hour later. There were two unneeded fire trucks, a sheriff and a tow truck. I understand why the deputy was there. Confused about the spendy fire trucks. No reason for it.
Perhaps you were not aware of how the call was originally received. “A car off the road in Moran,” perhaps from a motorist who was just passing by. So, in that case it would be an unknown injury response which would elicit an EMS response. I mean you don’t mention whether or not you reported the situation…
This current levy request will increase as follows:
Current assessed valuation is .$0.58 per $1,000. assessed valuation.
This will increase to $1.06 which is $0.48 per $1,000.
A $500,000 home would be $240.00
This levy request has no term limits
This is a no vote
We need a reasonable request with public input !
Let the fire dept do it’s work.
We are talking about properly funding our dept and we should try to stay on topic.
The levy we do pass will have community involvement and a term. Likely about half the current request and for 5-6 years. The dept can come back to us for more funds through the traditional levy and bond process, but this levy, with it’s tremendous cost and this all at once approach is not the best choice for Orcas.
I continue to encourage our fire board to revisit the assumptions in the consultants financial model by crafting, with community involvement, a levy which we can all support.
Gary,
I think you and I are saying the same thing – the community needs to be involved in determining what services they feel are needed and then OIFR must come back with a fair, market price for the services. The levy should be a temporary, not permanent. And for OIFR argument about a cliff, they are the ones that created the cliff as a crisis in 2024 – they waited too long to request a levy lid lift. Now they think they can cram it down our throats because we have no alternative.. Good governance requires prediction of upcoming issues, such as your financing running out.
Pierette,
Maybe you are using different words, and I think your math is correct, just maybe stated different. The present tax rate (not valuation) is $0.58/1000. A current owner of a $500,000 (valuation) property this year is paying $290/year. Next year a $500,000 property owner would pay $530/year ($290 times 1.83), or $240 more. I would encourage people to use something other than $500,000 valuation. The least expensive home sold in May 2023 was $680,000 and a year earlier $918,000. The median is TWICE the $500,000 ($1,099,500 last month, who will pay $500 more).
Bigger picture – The Board of Fire Commissioners continue to indicate that they know best what we need. They continue to cite “one off” discussions they have had. IF they each talked to 50 people and they ALL agreed that the levy as proposed is correct, based on the population, they have a 1.31% chance that they are correct about the levy amount. Maybe they should talk to a few more people?
The advertising for the fire department levy is very deceptive.
Their postcard claims the increase will be from $1.05 to $1.06.
I could say this is a lie but I’ll stick with “deceitful”.
The current levy is $.58/K and will rise to $1.06 which is an 83% increase.
In another place on their website they are claiming the levy will “increase the rate by $.48 for the first year in order to catch up….”. This is also deceitful. The levy is NOT a one year increase. It is permanent.
I don’t know how this board can sleep at night knowing they are intentionally misleading the voters.
Please vote no on Proposition One and to replace all three of the current board members up for re-election.
Let’s get to work on a fair and transparent levy in 2024. They will need it for 2025.
The Orcas fire dept is asking for way more money than they need to balance the books, granted, they will need to buy some new trucks, but not for about five more years. If they refurbish the trucks at twenty years, their life is extended for another ten years.
They have not told us what they are going to do with the millions of extra dollars this levy will produce. The headquarters station will be paid for soon. all the other stations are paid for except for the Deer Harbor station.
What I really don’t like is that this is a permanent lid lift. That means that they will have millions of taxpayer dollars to spend without consulting the taxpayer.