Clark County Fire District 10 will ask voters to approve a levy lid increase in the April 25 special election. The extra money would pay for someone to always be on duty in the 64-square-mile fire district.
The ballot measure would increase the tax rate from the current 68 cents to $1 per $1,000 of assessed property value. It would allow the district to have at least one firefighter on duty at all times. The district, which protects some of the northernmost parts of Clark County, currently can’t pay for firefighters to be on duty at all times.
The district saw 731 calls for service in 2015, then 728 last year, the district said in a news release.
“It’s very hard to cover all of those calls with an essentially volunteer staff,” Battalion Chief Gordon Brooks said in the release.
Brooks and an office manager are District 10’s only full-time employees. Fire Chief Sam Arola works part-time, and everyone else, 43 people in all, are volunteers, Brooks said.
“We miss about 1 percent to 1½ percent of our calls every year, six to 10 calls where we don’t have anyone available,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like a lot, but if that’s your emergency, it becomes a big deal. This levy increase would allow us to hire sufficient people to make sure we have a crew on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Brooks said district staff are available to discuss the levy vote individually or to appear at meetings, and can be reached during business hours seven days a week at 360-247-5233.
At the current levy rate, owners of a $300,000 home in the district pay about $204 annually. Were the levy increase to pass, they’d pay about another $96 per year.
