PORT ANGELES — Voters in Clallam County Fire District 2 will notice something familiar on their general election ballots: a request for a levy lid lift.
Clallam County Fire District 2 (CCFD2) is asking voters to raise the levy from its current rate of 96 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value to $1.50 per $1,000.
The fire district’s request for increased funding is not unique. It is rooted in a challenge that fire districts across the county are facing — the task of finding a reliable, sustainable source of funding that can grow at a pace with escalating inflation.
If a simple majority approves Proposition 1 next month, the new levy rate would bring CCFD2 about $3.2 million, based on 2023 assessed values. Last year, the 96-cent levy brought CCFD2 just less than $2.1 million.
The levy lid lift request is not new — during the Aug. 6 primary election, about 53 percent of voters turned down CCFD2’s request, as well as a separate request to implement an EMS levy of 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.
However, the district is back again, this time focusing solely on the levy lid lift request while reserving the EMS levy request for a potential date in the future.
“This levy is critical in order to sustain our current level of services and keep the [10] firefighters and EMT/paramedics we currently have,” the fire district’s website states. “It is also essential to fund all our operations, because 82 percent of funding for the fire district comes for the regular fire levy. It pays for all fire and EMS services the community enjoys.”
If the levy lid lift is not approved this time, CCFD2 Fire Chief Jake Patterson said the district will have to make cuts to service levels by the end of 2026, according to prior reporting.
Funding challenges
There are a few different funding sources for local fire districts, said Keith Cortner, the president of the Olympic Peninsula Fire Commissioners Association: levies, ambulance and car accident billing, grants and junior taxing funds.
Each funding source is coupled with its own challenges.
Levies are the main reliable, sustainable source of funding that a fire district can receive, and therefore they are the primary funding source for all the local fire districts, Cortner said.
However, levy collection is limited by state law.
The maximum levy rate a fire district can set is $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value.
There are also restrictions on its growth.
A levy can only collect 1 percent more than it did in the most recent collection, excluding new construction, unless a simple majority of voters approve a greater collection.
That means if a levy collects $1 million one year, the next year it can only collect $1.1 million — even if the levy rate and an increase in assessed property value theoretically would allow the district to collect more.
Functionally, that means the actual levy rate – the percent that the district is collecting per $1,000 of assessed property value – decreases year over year.
“It’ll deteriorate right off the bat,” Clallam County Fire District 5 (CCFD5) commissioner Greg Bellamy said.
That presents a problem for fire districts which rely on a levy for sustenance. While the levy collection is limited to 1 percent growth annually, inflation outpaces that growth every year, leaving fire districts with a hole in their budgets. Just last year, the average rate of inflation was 3.4 percent.
“One percent does not keep up with inflation,” Cortner said. “By the time we have salary increases, fuel increases, tax increases, supply and equipment increases, that 1 percent doesn’t make much difference from one year to the next.”
Based on inflation, Cortner said he guesses levy lid lifts will sustain a fire district for about two to three years before it needs to consider going back to voters for another raise.
Other funding sources have their own challenges.
Ambulance billing can garner some funds for fire districts that are transport agencies, such as CCFD2, Clallam County Fire District 3 (CCFD3) and the Port Angeles Fire Department.
Additionally, some fire districts bring in some income by billing insurance companies for emergency services provided during auto accidents, said Fire Chief Bill Paul of Clallam County Fire District 1 (CCFD1).
However, both these funding sources are limited and not enough for a district to sustain itself.
Grants are another funding option, although Cortner said they are a “limited” option.
The main grant opportunity for fire districts is the federal Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program, run through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
In 2024, the AFG received almost 8,000 applications requesting about $3.72 billion.
FEMA awarded 1,635 grants that totaled $324 million, or about 9 percent of the total funding requests.
Clallam County Fire District 6 (CCFD6) commissioner Chip Keen said those numbers show the “inadequacy of federal funding.”
There also are a few state agencies that provide grants and assistance, such as the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
That can narrow the number of applicants applying, Cortner said, but the grants are usually smaller amounts dedicated to specific things.
Grants also are not guaranteed year over year.
Fire districts that are junior taxing districts also can get money from applicable timber harvests. However, that funding is never guaranteed and can fluctuate drastically, Cortner said.
“[Junior taxing income] is never anywhere close to the projected amounts,” Clallam County Fire District 4 (CCFD4) Fire Chief Greg Waters said.
Junior taxing district funding also has decreased in recent years due to state policies that block DNR timberland from being harvested, usually due to environmental reasons.
That has hit CCFD5 particularly hard. Bellamy said the district used to receive about $33,000 a year in junior taxing funds. Last year, it only received about $3,000.
Even if the timber does end up getting cut, Cortner said fire districts aren’t the only ones to receive it — it is spread out between all the eligible entities, and fire districts often see a very small portion of the overall funds.
“The problem is, I got to share it with the others,” Bellamy said.
Districts don’t just stick with those four funding sources, however.
“All the [fire] districts are always looking for various options for thinking out of the box to see if there is additional funding sources,” Cortner said.
Cortner said he is working to see if districts could be eligible for Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funding, which are federal funds distributed to counties to offset losses in property tax revenues for federal land. The county then divvies the PILT funds between eligible entities.
In fiscal year 2024, Clallam County received about $1.35 million in PILT funds, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Fire districts could theoretically receive PILT funds, Cortner said, although the county has never allocated PILT funding to those agencies before. He is working to change that.
However, PILT funds are also not sustainable as there is no guarantee a county will receive it, nor that the county will give some of those funds to fire districts.
Because of the volatility and restrictions on the other funding sources, Cortner said the best source of continual, sustained funding for fire districts is “unfortunately the tax levy.”
“There’s really no choice other than levy lid lifts to cover the gap,” Keen said.
Although levies may be the best funding source, they impose a burden on property owners who must deal with continually increasing taxes.
“They’re struggling with the same thing that the [fire] districts are,” Cortner said. “That’s tough to ask them for that extra few percent to increase levy rates to sustain operation from year to year.”
Additionally, fire districts are not the only ones that rely on property taxes. Public schools, counties, cities, libraries, port districts, hospitals, metropolitan park districts, conservation futures, and parks and recreations all have levies, relying on property owners to continually fund their operations.
Last year, Clallam County’s average total levy rate was $8.24 per $1,000 of assessed property value and the average residential property value was about $382,000, according to the state Department of Revenue.
That means the average residential property owner paid about $3,148 in local and state property taxes last year.
And, although the average total levy rate has been decreasing year over year, corresponding increases in property value mean the average residential property tax bill in Clallam County has increased by between $170 and $279 every year since 2019.
If CCFD2’s levy lid lift is passed next month, it will cost the owner of a property valued at $300,000 an additional $162 in taxes per year.
The owner of a property valued at $400,000 would pay an additional $216 per year, while the owner of a property valued at $500,000 would pay an additional $270 per year.
If passed, a property owner’s tax payment for this levy alone would be $450 for a $300,000 valuation, $600 for a $400,000 valuation or $750 for a $500,000 valuation.
Comparing fire districts
Square miles covered
CCFD1: 487
CCFD2: 85
CCFD3: 142
CCFD4: 87
CCFD5: 76
CCFD6: 20
Approximate people residing in the district
CCFD1: 6,500
CCFD2: 9,500
CCFD3: 34,000
CCFD4: 3,500
CCFD5: 1,000
CCFD6: 732
Average yearly calls
CCFD1: 225, about one every 1.6 days
CCFD2: 1,994, about 5.5 per day
CCFD3: 8,400, about 23 per day
CCFD4: 425, about 1.2 per day
CCFD5: 50, about one a week
CCFD6: 70, about one every 5 days
2023 levy rate
CCFD1: 48 cents per $1,000, levied on $604.9 million of assessed value
CCFD2: 96 cents per $1,000, levied on $2.137 trillion of assessed value
CCFD3: $1.47 per $1,000, levied on $9.244 trillion of assessed value
CCFD4: $1.04 per $1,000, levied on $478.2 million of assessed value
CCFD5: 47 cents per $1,000, levied on $134.3 million of assessed value
CCFD6: 50 cents per $1,000, levied on $74.9 million of assessed value
2023 levy income
CCFD1: $290,000
CCFD2: $2.06 million
CCFD3: $13.6 million
CCFD4: $499,000
CCFD5: $62,900
CCFD6: $37,000
Last levy lid lift
CCFD1: 2015-2017, from 41 cents to 78 cents per $1,000
CCFD2: 2020, from 86 cents to $1.36 per $1,000
CCFD3: 2018, from $1.26 to $1.50 per $1,000
CCFD4: 2019, from 78 cents to $1.50 per $1,000
CCFD5: 2024, from 47 cents to $1.10 per $1,000
CCFD6: 2010-2014, from 52 cents to $1 per $1,000
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
