Camas city councilors approved the city’s biennial 2019-2020 budget at their Dec. 17 meeting but will have to wait until January to make a decision on funding additional positions in the Camas-Washougal Fire Department.
During the budget process, Camas councilors have discussed the possibility of adding four firefighters and a deputy marshal or fire inspector to the department. The department covers Camas and Washougal, and Washougal pays Camas for its share of the department’s services every year based on a formula. Washougal officials told Camas they don’t have the funds to pay their portion of the proposed new hires.
Camas has space in the budget for those five positions but might not hire people for all of them depending on how much Washougal is willing to pay.
“We can’t start recruiting for those positions until we’ve had further discussions with Washougal,” Camas City Administrator Pete Capell said. “We had to get (our) budget passed.”
Washougal’s next council meeting is Jan. 14, and City Manager David Scott wrote in an email that he doesn’t anticipate any decisions before then. He also said there hasn’t been any change in the city’s thinking about the issue from earlier in December, when he said, “After some consideration and deliberation, our council’s priorities around the budget and programming didn’t accommodate the necessary funding for this.”
In 2017, Washougal paid Camas $3.06 million for fire services, Scott said. Washougal’s 2018 payment is expected to come in at around $3.3 million, and the city’s 2019 payment is an estimated $3.34 million without those new positions. The five new positions would mean another $153,521 for Washougal, a figure that most likely would increase in 2020 as the new hires would be there for a full year, Scott said.
Camas city councilors next meet on Jan. 7. “Our council needs to decide if we go ahead based on their good faith effort and fund all five, or we just fund our share of what they’re able to do,” Capell said.
At their Dec. 3 meeting, Camas city councilors tabled a potential amendment to an interlocal agreement between the two cities with a few options on how to proceed. The amendment gives Camas the option of:
• Hiring all five positions with Washougal starting to pay for the new positions in 2020 or 2021.
• Hiring two firefighters and one inspector in 2019 and two more firefighters in 2020, with Washougal starting to pay in 2020 or 2021.
• Hiring four firefighters and one fire inspector, while Washougal would pay its share by deferring payment to a reserve fund.
• Hiring two firefighters and one fire inspector in 2019 and two firefighters in 2020 with Washougal paying its share by deferring payment to the reserve.
• Delaying the hires until Washougal has agreed to the staffing levels.
“Previously, we had council members who were willing to pay for all five positions, even if Washougal couldn’t afford it because they felt the safety need was that great,” Capell said. “We’ve had other councilors think we shouldn’t spend Camas taxpayer dollars on things that would serve Washougal.”
Capell said there has been talk of Washougal funding two positions with plans on working toward Washougal funding its full portion of the new hires in the future, but nothing has been settled yet.
“We’ll be updating our interlocal agreement with hopes they’re able to fund all the additional positions in 2020,” Capell said. “The draft amendment we had said they would make best effort to fund in 2020, but no later than 2021.”
