Our guest speaker on Friday, September 24th was Kevin O'Brien, Club Member and Chief of the Snohomish Regional Fire and Rescue to update our members on his organization. In 2019, voters approved a merger between the Lake Stevens Fire and Snohomish County Fire District 7. Today, SRFR serves 175,000 residents in the cities of Lake Stevens, Mill Creek and Monroe as well as in unincorporated southeast Snohomish County (Clearview, Maltby, Echo Lake). SRFR provides emergency services to the City of Mill Creek through a temporary contract. SRFR responds to over 17,000 calls per year with highly trained personnel and state of the art rescue programs.
To maintain this level of service, the Snohomish Regional Fire and Rescue is asking voters to a approve a one-year fire levy lid lift of $0.23 per $1,000 assessed property value. The November 2nd General Election Ballot Measure, Prop 1 will return the fire levy from $1.27 to $1.50 per $1,000. This levy lid lift is required by state law and is the way that fire districts revenues are raised in the state.
The last time voters approved a fire levy lid left was in 2017. Call volumes have increased by 10.2% compared to the same time last year. Inflation is another factor affecting the operation which is 6.3% making cost higher to respond to emergency calls and maintain operations. Levy revenue is not keeping up with the demand for and the cost to provide emergency services.
Funds for the lid lift will be used to maintain staffing levels, restore firefighter training, fire prevention and life safety programs, replace aging fire engines and ambulances and funding fire station projects throughout the district.
SRFR is legally required to operate under a balanced budget. If the lid lift fails, SRFR would borrow money to fund apparatus and station projects as well as continuing to reduce public outreach, fire prevention, maintenance, training and specialized rescue programs. Finally staffing levels would be reduced resulting in service level cuts and longer response times.
Kevin was joined by members of his team and three of the fire commissioners. Thank you, Kevin for the update.