East County Fire and Rescue’s failed levy lid lift in November has prompted commissioners to terminate an interlocal agreement with the city of Camas for shared service of Camas-Washougal Fire Department Chief Nick Swinhart.
“We’re looking at ways to save money,” said Mike Taggart, vice chair of East County’s board of commissioners.
Taggart signed a letter that Camas city councilors will discuss at their workshop at 4:30 p.m. Monday at Camas City Hall, 616 N.E. Fourth Ave. The letter says that East County’s board voted in December to terminate the agreement, which was signed in October 2016. The agreement will end Feb. 1, according to the letter.
The agreement saw East County pay Camas-Washougal roughly $37,000 a year and Swinhart spend about 37.5 hours a month at the district. Swinhart said it worked out so he usually spent one day a week at East County and attended one board meeting a month. He helped with overall administration oversight, budget oversight and reporting to the commissioners.
Swinhart said he assumed the conversation would come up once East County’s levy lid lift failed in November with 53.38 percent of voters coming out against the tax increase. The two agencies have discussed a merger throughout the last few years, but talks between the two have died down.
“With those two things coming to a head, there probably wasn’t a lot of sense for continuing our agreement for much longer,” Swinhart said.
The levy would have raised the district property tax levy rate, increasing district residents’ property taxes by 21 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value to $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value. Emergency call volumes have increased almost 52 percent in the district since 2007, while the levy rate has declined to $1.29 per $1,000 of assessed property, according to the district.
Taggart said East County receives around $2.1 million in revenue from levy dollars, an amount that would’ve increased by at least $400,000 with the levy lid lift.
“We all were (surprised),” Taggart said of the failed vote. “It was very, very close. With the large turnout, we really thought we’d get it passed.”
He added that the department fully intends on putting a levy lid lift up for another vote, and commissioners are still trying to figure out when.
Both departments will have some shuffling to do. Swinhart said Camas-Washougal will have to make up the funds lost from the agreement from somewhere else in the city of Camas’ budget.
Deputy chief promoted
As for East County, Deputy Chief Mike Carnes will take over the department. When the interlocal agreement was first made, Carnes was promoted from captain to deputy chief, where he oversaw the day-to-day operations for East County. He will now become chief.
“He’s going to do an excellent job,” Swinhart said. “He’s well positioned and has the experience to run the district. He’ll be an excellent leader. It won’t be much of a change. He’s been leading the department. The primary change is a different title for him. His role and responsibility will be pretty much the same.”
Carnes has been with East County for 22 years, starting out as a volunteer and moving to a paid position about 12 years ago. East County has nine full-time employees: three captains and six firefighters/EMS personnel. There are also six part-time firefighter/EMS employees, and about 15 volunteers, Carnes said.
The end of the interlocal agreement isn’t the only change coming to East County. Due to the failed levy, Carnes said the department won’t be able to cover as much overtime if someone calls in sick or goes on vacation. Starting on Jan. 1, the department switched policies and will now have to “brownout” a station if staffing needs can’t be met, meaning the department will move on-duty employees to a more central location.
Carnes said that will mean moving employees from Station 91, 600 N.E. 267th Ave., Camas, and Station 94, 1808 S.E. 352nd Ave., Washougal, to Station 93, 121 N.E. 312th Ave., Washougal.
“Our goal is to always staff the two stations,” Carnes said. “We will continue to do that as long as we can.”
