OIFR Capital Bond Measure – Updated Financial Information
||| FROM BEN LUNA for ORCAS ISLAND FIRE & RESCUE |||
Orcas Island Fire & Rescue is providing updated financial information for Proposition 1, the $18.5 million general obligation bond measure appearing on the November 2025 ballot. An earlier estimate of the bond levy rate did not include interest costs. The corrected bond levy rate is anticipated to be approximately $0.27 per thousand dollars of assessed value based on what we know at this point in time.
The rate may change based on prevailing interest rates, when the bonds are issued, and assessed property values. The current estimate for a home assessed at $1 million, this equals about $267 per year or $22 per month for the bond portion.
Proposition 1 Details
If Proposition 1 passes, the funds will be used to make needed and deferred capital investments in equipment and facilities. Many Orcas Island Fire & Rescue apparatus are at the end of their useful lives, and certain facilities need repair or improvement.
Proposition 1 allows Orcas Island Fire & Rescue to issue bonds to refurbish and purchase fire engines, tenders, brush trucks and ambulances, to rehabilitate and improve roofs, cranes/lifts, utilities, restrooms and other fire station facilities, and for other qualifying capital improvements.
Bond proceeds would be used for capital improvements and upgrades to support firefighting capacity, prevention, protection and emergency medical services, including wildfire defense. The proposition would authorize the issuance of up to $18,500,000 of general obligation bonds in one or more issuances to be repaid over 20 years and levy of annual property taxes to repay the bonds.
The funds from Proposition 1 can only be used for equipment repair and replacement needs and facility repairs. The funds cannot be used to fund operational expenses for the department.
Bond Structure
General obligation bonds can spread costs for up to 20 years and can be issued as needed rather
than all at once. Bond funds are legally restricted to designated capital projects. The bonds would
be repaid through annual property tax levies over the 20-year term.
Contact Information
For questions about the bond measure, please contact the Board of Fire Commissioners: bofc@orcasfire.org.
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
“The bonds would be repaid through annual property tax levies over the 20-year term.”
How many times must we mortgage the future for more things that we don’t need today? Do YOU really want to be on the hook for TWENTY YEARS for new overpriced toys? FIX what we have! Make do! This is Orcas Island not Mercer Island!
We don’t need any more new firetrucks, we need the MILLION + DOLLAR FIRE PALACE in Deer Harbor to function as promised. How much interest are we still paying on that boondoogle? My home insurance went up $1000 this year because the overpriced facility in Deer Harbor isn’t staffed. How about fixing THAT before coming to the public with your hat out AGAIN?
The fire department TAXES ARE ALREADY TOO HIGH and you want to add $18,500,000 plus interest??? FOR WHAT??? Does anyone remember a quaint idea called FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY? It appears the fire department has forgotten.
Ken Wood, I’d love to see your carefully prepared pro forma alternative OIFR budget and financial analysis for how to move the department into the future you seek. I’ve attended many of their meetings the past two years (did not see you at them) and have read over their financials and budget, and have concluded that the current Commissioners and Chief are highly competent and have developed a reasonable (if ufortunately expensive) strategy. I, like you, would love to see a smaller cost and I haven’t enjoyed my property taxes continuing to rise, but unfortunately that spurt of inflation a couple years ago took us all into the stratosphere, where we remain. So please… apply your considerable financial acumen towards alternative and lower cost proposales for OIFR, and heck, I’ll vote for you if you come up with something that strikes me as reasonable. :-) In the meantime, this bond is heading for the ballot this November.
Perhaps you dealt with this question in an earlier post, Ben, but what is the definition of the “bond levy rate”? Is it the additional tax we will have to pay to cover the principal and interests costs of the $18.5 million dollar bond, assessed over the 20-year life of the bond? Or longer? More detail here would be helpful.
Every expenditure of public money should be balanced with the benefit. I don’t see the benefit justifying the expenditure. In the past the fire department has spent money like a drunken sailor (the Deer Harbor fire house being a perfect example). Wealthy retirees tend to vote for schools, libraries, fire and police departments because their personal cost:benefit calculation makes sense to them; a few thousand dollars here and there seems a small price to pay for having suburban size firehouses and EMTs to drive you to the helicopter. When your budget is tighter, those extra thousands of expense add up to an unacceptable percentage for a false sense of security.
I say false because if your house is on fire, it’s almost certainly a total loss no matter who or what arrives. The vast majority of homeowners have insurance for this very reason. Keeping a fire from spreading is obviously in all our best interests but that was managed in the past with a TINY fraction of the expenditures this levy is asking for. How many times did the island burn down in the past with far less shiny firetrucks and far lower budgets? That’s right, zero.
The point I’m trying to make is $18,500,000 plus 20 years of interest is a LOT of taxes to extract from the property owners of Orcas Island and I simply don’t see any advantage remotely commensurate with the expense. I will be voting NO on this levy.
I urge everyone to consider the costs versus the benefits themselves and decide if forcing your island neighbors to pay eighteen million dollars for your illusory peace of mind is actually a good deal for the island or not.