Last week, commissioners of the Vashon Island Fire District solemnly adopted a $5.6 million budget for 2021, a spending plan 1.8% larger than this year’s, which will allow the district to cover costs, buy an aid car and designate funds to reserve accounts.

After holding three public hearings in November, the fire district’s final 2021 budget provides for several growing expenditures, with the largest including payroll, disaster preparedness work in collaboration with the island’s Medical Reserve Corps, and facilities maintenance, identified by Chief Charlie Krimmert as being neglected for a long time.

Commissioners voted on their budget as islanders submitted comments and discussed the prospect that the Vashon Park District would begin to see significantly less tax revenue in the future now that two of the island’s largest tax districts have set their respective levy rates, leaving no headroom remaining under the state-imposed limit of $5.90 per $1,000 assessed property value.

Under Washington law, the combined levy limit for cities, counties and most special districts is $5.90 per $1,000 of assessed value. Should that limit be exceeded, then “prorationing” is implemented and so-called “junior” taxing districts would see reductions to their levy rates. For Vashon, Parks is the first, and presently only district, to be affected, and will lose tax revenue.

Fire district commissioners stated that the pandemic and other economic factors justified the passage of their budget that some objected to as excessive in view of the impact that prorationing will have on the island’s park and recreation services.

But with the approval of their budget, plus a higher-than-expected spending plan reaffirmed on the same evening at a special meeting of the Vashon Health District commissioners, the park district is due to lose a total of $132,000 in tax revenue, about 9% of the district’s budget. It was already running lean after voters rejected the district’s $.52 cent levy proposal last year before later approving a parks levy of $.45 cents per $1,000 assessed property value — amounting to $1.5 million in levy revenue as part of a budget that commissioners renewed last week, unsure how else to proceed under the circumstances.

With prorationing, Park District Executive Director Elaine Ott-Rocheford said last week that the district’s levy amount will be drawn down to $1.35 million and, she said, that leaves the district unable to keep up with inflation in the years to come. Now the district faces uncertainty, with a chance of being prorationed even further, as other special taxing districts in King County such as the roads division are said to be considering increasing their own levy rates in the months ahead to stave off their own financial challenges. And Ott-Rocheford warned the board that she fears the trouble won’t end there.

“We’re all hurting”

The fire district’s 2021 budget will be the third since islanders voted several years ago to increase taxes for the fire department. The vote has allowed the district to increase its tax revenue by up to 6% a year for five years instead of the typical 1% to which taxing districts are typically limited. That boost has allowed the district to raise more money than it would have been able to otherwise.

The fire district expects to levy $4.98 million in tax revenue next year. However, a forecasted decline of the island’s total assessed value means that even at the fire district’s new, highest statutory tax rate of $1.50 per $1,000 assessed value — up from $1.47 last year — the district will see a decrease in property tax revenue of a half percent, or approximately $26,000 next year.

With lower property values, taxing districts need to increase their rates to make up for the shortfall in order to generate the same amount of revenue. And data calculated by the county assessor’s office has shown Vashon’s assessed property values fluctuate as the office updates and releases estimates.

Both the fire and park district boards reacted to the latest information from the county with alarm. The most recent data shows the island’s cumulative property values from last year off by $19 million compared to early estimates released in October, and a whopping $63 million less than the county’s 2018 assessment, according to Krimmert and Ott-Rocheford.

One of the largest costs for the fire district is for union and personnel contract arrangements, which together account for more than 75% of the budget for 2021. But the district is still looking to hire more volunteers and both full and part-time employees, Krimmert told the board earlier last month, adding that his contract and that of Assistant Chief Bob Larson will expire in one year.

Other personnel-related expenditures for 2021 include a cost of living adjustment totaling $95,000 more for all uniform firefighters and EMTs over last year and $28,000 more for employees of the business office. Insurance, training and certain costs of equipment were also larger in next year’s budget.

The new budget plans for the district to allocate $475,000 for various financial reserves, with extra funds slated for operational cash reserves, that touch on the objectives of the administration and more from Vashon Island Fire & Rescue’s fleet to services, equipment and personnel.

Some have suggested that the fire district is solvent enough to get by without having more funding, with the additional tax revenue it is already receiving. During one of the district’s public hearings on the budget, one of the only meeting attendees, islander Scott Harvey, questioned why the voter-approved increase was still necessary, especially in light of the health care district’s own levy proposal that he predicted would slash Parks’ income.

“We all know that the hospital district is going to be coming up with a levy, a big levy, which is going to adversely affect a lot of people involved here,” he said. “You have an opportunity right now to do what would be the proper thing, and in other words, not increase [the budget] by [6%] for the third year in a row, and to let the dust settle and see what happens as far as what’s happening here.”

Harvey recognized that the rocky financial condition of the district had improved greatly from only a few years ago, adding that the district had developed robust reserves since — enough, he said, to hold off and “still protect the property and the people and safety of everybody else in the island here, as we see how this hospital district thing plays out.”

But at their final meeting, the board members claimed that the budget is tighter than it may seem and that the reserves were not padded, used routinely to replace major line items such as self-contained breathing apparatus for first responders as well as a new engine for one of the district’s fire trucks.

Commissioners stayed on message and were prepared to address why else they chose to move ahead with the budget, with a few citing the specter of past long-standing financial mismanagement hanging over their decisions as an indication of a lack of previous accountability on the island they said they were guarding against.

Candy McCullough, chair of the board, was the first to comment on the increasing cost of salaries and expenditures such as apparatus upgrades before the district’s final vote on the budget, adding that certain capital improvements at VIFR facilities have been postponed for too long.

“I don’t think personally that we can afford to give up any of the potential revenue. We have to provide these things, we have to fix these things, so we can provide services,” she said, adding that emails sent from community members to the board “painted us as the bad guys.”

“It’s painful for all of us. Nobody wants to hurt anyone,” she said. “We’re all hurting. But we all have to do what’s right. And when it comes to life and safety, our money is still going to go down, but our expenses are going to go up. So we can’t really afford to be the heroes and throw money back to the parks district at this point, from my perspective,” she said.

Other board members added that it was not only in the fire district’s best interest to pass the budget as drafted but imperative for the island.

But Hans Van Dusen, chairman of the Park District, attended the meeting and questioned that rhetoric, arguing that a tax increase would mean that Parks would have to forgo all the maintenance and preservation work it intended to do at the expense of the voters, from the community pool to the Tramp Harbor dock project, neglecting the island-wide facilities and assets owned by Parks that the fire district now protects.

“It’s a painful trade-off. It wasn’t either of our creation, for sure. But I just wanted to be clear on that, that you’re going to make a choice to reduce the capital resources and operating resources of the parks district,” Van Dusen said, asking the district to reconsider its budget even with only days before the final version was due to the county, on Nov. 30.

Ott-Rocheford, for her part, said that the fire district’s tax increase alone reflects an estimated $67,000 decrease in Parks’ budget, calling it a large sum relative to the budget of the small organization compared to the fire district, worsened by the declining property valuation of the island that deepens Parks’ loss.

Krimmert later said that the latest county data he had seen showed that the total assessed value on Vashon was projected to accelerate within a year or two and bounce back, reflecting changes in property values this year.

The discussion about the district’s choice to continue with the approval of the 2021 budget while deliberately affecting Parks turned to finger-pointing when Krimmert became notably frustrated after VIFR was criticized for not working with health and park district board members to reduce protationing, following a question asked by Jennifer Bonaventura, a community member who said her husband was employed by Parks.

She referenced the fire district’s willingness to reach out to Parks in 2017 upon passage of their expanded levy as concerns of prorationing the park district were also raised then, while the health district was still the hope of representatives of the Vashon Health Care Collaborative.

“In 2017, we were all perceiving on the island that we were an immediate threat to the parks district based on the large sum of money we were asking for at the time,” Krimmert said. “We did not partner at this time because simply, we understood the hospital district to have made a commitment that they would not ask for monies that would impact any junior taxing district up until [Nov.] 18, there was no intent to cause harm.”

The fire district passed the 2021 budget 4-1, with commissioner David Hoffman abstaining.

“I feel uncomfortable. I don’t want to vote yes or no,” he said.

Health care commissioners press rewind, press ahead

As the fire district reflected and defended the budget the board put forth, the Vashon Health Care District commissioners held a special meeting at the same time, marking an effort that Board Chairman Tom Langland said was intended to increase the accountability of their recent deliberation process, which saw them introduce and approve a $.58 per $1,000 levy rate.

“We intend to acknowledge and atone for our process errors,” he said, saying their deliberations happened too late and with little public notice or transparency, especially among the park district, he told that board at their own meeting the day before.

Langland added that it was the commissioners’ wish to dispel notions that the district was being intentionally deceitful.

“I think I, along with a lot of my colleagues here as commissioners, have received a lot of mail. And most of them are very formative. But some of them suggest some sort of intentional, misleading activities. And I can assure you, there is no culture for that in this district,” he said, admitting that early on, the board made comments only short of pledging to leave the park district alone which did not anticipate the numerous calamities that the COVID-19 pandemic had brought to health care and the district’s formation efforts.

As part of the meeting, Superintendent Eric Jensen proposed an alternate budget option of $.56 cents per $1,000 of assessed value that would carry around $66,000 less tax revenue to the health care district over the course of the year, with most commissioners expressing dissatisfaction over the low cash balance the levy provided in the first quarter of next year while still ending 2021 with an overall cash balance of $305,000. The alternative levy choice would also have taken care of the district’s debt service needs, arising from an inter-fund loan from the county the district obtained after agreeing to support beleaguered Neighborcare Health before the provider exited the island. Without that help, Neighborcare could have left Vashon without a primary care clinic for many years and coming later at a higher cost, Jensen said.

The proposed $.56 cent levy also hurt the parks’ bottom line, Ott-Rocheford said, swinging between both the fire and health care district’s online meetings.

Public comment was largely critical of the health district’s attempt to raise more than had been suggested at the outset. The commissioners heard each and responded before reaffirming their earlier vote for a $.58 cents per $1,000 value-assessed tax levy, with Eric Pryne, who voted against that levy resolution, also disapproving of the newly proposed option for similar reasons he had for opposing the district’s final levy rate. But he voted in favor of a $.56 cent levy rate, considering it preferable to the previously adopted $.58 cent rate. The motion failed 4-1.

This version of the article corrects the vote that health care district commissioners took concerning the proposed $.56 cents per $1,000 value-assessed tax levy resolution. It also clarifies a paragraph about the island’s assessed property values.