Thursday, October 10, 2013

Lift-Lid Levy Information from Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove and Palouse Fire Department Chief Mike Bagott


VOTE * VOTE * VOTE *

From Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove:
In the next few weeks voters will begin to receive their ballots for the November 5th general election. Along with our annual Street Maintenance and Swimming Pool levy requests, voters will be asked for the first time to consider a “levy lid-lift” measure.

“Lid-lift” measures reset the baseline folks pay in property tax. Currently the city of Palouse collects approximately $2.49 per $1,000 of assessed value. The ballot request seeks to “lift” that value to $3.10 per $1,000 - an increase of 60 cents.  In everyday terms it would mean that a home with an assessed value of $100,000 would see a $60 increase in their yearly taxes.

A similar measure was passed by voters in Pullman just last month.

Monies generated from this request will be utilized in two basic areas - our Current Expense fund and a proposed new effort to recapitalize our local Fire Department.

Support from Olympia with state shared revenues (monies collected statewide and re-distributed back into our communities) has been on a steady decline over the last ten years. These funds have historically gone into our Current Expense fund. Our Current Expense account funds a host of city programs including our cemetery, a portion of employee wages, our parks, our Police and Fire Departments, etc. A good example of belt tightening that has occurred in this area is when our employees were asked to take a 3% salary reduction several years ago. Revenues generated from the proposed lid lift will help keep the programs and amenities we enjoy in Palouse strong.

The city is also proposing a new long-term strategy of setting aside up to 10% of our local property tax monies into our Fire Department Equipment Reserve Account. Chief Bagott has done a tremendous job leading our Fire Department, and has developed a long-term strategy to keep the Fire Department strong. This will require a commitment of approximately $150,000 from the city to be set aside over the next ten years. The proposed levy lid-lift measure enables the city to meet this objective.

Thank you for your consideration of our upcoming ballot measures and please remember to mail in your ballot by November. 5, 2013.

From Palouse Fire Department Chief Mike Bagott:
The lid-lift proposal is very important to the future of the Palouse Fire Department. We are anticipating the need for approximately $300,000 ($150,000 each from the City and the RFD) by the end of 2020 to replace two fire trucks and our air packs.

The lid-lift proposal allows the City to collect these funds gradually over this time span. This will be much less burdensome to the taxpayers than larger levies closer to the time when the equipment needs to be replaced. The Fire Department has worked hard over the past decade to improve our capabilities by purchasing better and safer equipment and we want to be able to continue to do so in the future.

The fire we had up on Cannon Street last February likely would have had a much worse outcome had we not made the equipment upgrades we did over the past decade. When I started with the Fire Department in 1995, we could bring less than 4,000 gallons of water to a fire, and we had very little capability to pump it in large volumes. By comparison, we now bring 8,500 gallons of water to a fire. We also have the capability to pump large volumes at high pressure for an extended period of time before we even need to be concerned about accessing the City's water system. Fortunately, structure fires of any consequence have only been happening about once every 5 years recently - but we still need to be prepared to hit them hard when they do happen.

Your support of the proposed levy lid-lift measure will keep your Palouse Fire Department strong for years to come.     Thank you.


 

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