The ballot measure seeks to raise the property taxes collected from the current $0.82 per thousand to $1.35 per thousand
The Board of Commissioners of Clark County Fire District 10 adopted a resolution at their regular meeting to seek a Levy Lid Lift in the August 2022 Primary Election. The ballot measure seeks to raise the property taxes collected from the current $0.82 per thousand to $1.35 per thousand to fund additional full-time staffing for the District.
Clark County Fire District 10 covers the Northeast corner of Clark County, 85 square miles of rural homes.
“We ran 822 calls in 2020, 902 calls last year and anticipate being over 1000 calls a year in 2024. It’s very hard to cover all of those calls with an essentially volunteer staff” according to Assistant Chief Gordon Brooks. “We have three full time Fire Captains on shift 24 hours a day. Our Administrative Assistant and I are here full time during the day and our Fire Chief, Sam Arola is here part time. Everybody else is a volunteer. With the ever-increasing call volume, we struggle when we have more than one call at a time, a few times a month.
“This levy increase would allow us to hire sufficient people to make sure we have a crew available to respond to more than one call,’’ Brooks added. “We also really need to improve our response times on the west side of the District, View, Highland, Taylor Valley Road. We are working to create living quarters at our View Station, and this will ensure we have staff there. Right now, we have a total of 46 volunteers, all great people, but they have other responsibilities, jobs, families, so it’s really hard to have someone available all of the time. If anyone would like to discuss what we want to do, we are available for meetings, to talk on an individual basis or by a telephone call at our office (360) 247-5233 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week.”
Clark County Fire District 10 currently has the lowest tax rate of all fire districts in Clark County. If this ballot measure is approved, this would cost the owner of a $400,000 home an additional $214.36 a year.
Information provided by Clark County Fire District 10.
wpDiscuz
