Spirit Lake Fire Protection District seeking permanent levy

The Spirit Lake Fire Protection District needs your help.

The District hopes voters will pass a new, permanent tax levy Nov. 3 to help fund and replace the current temporary levy. The current levy gives the District $477,000, while the proposed permanent levy would increase that to $785,000.

“To be able to increase (our levy) another $308,000 and say that that's a permanent levy for us, that is huge,” District Fire Chief Dave England said. “We're asking for pennies in comparison to some of our neighboring departments. But those pennies add up for us.”

Spirit Lake Fire Protection District provides fire protection and medical services within a 120-square-mile radius, serving Kootenai and Bonner counties, plus surrounding areas such as Spirit Lake and Blanchard, and the communities of Spirit Lake East, Stoneridge, Hoodoo Valley, and Spirit Valley, according to the District’s website. 

As demand increases, the District needs to add staff to keep up. It's currently looking to expand from 10 firefighters and EMTs to 12. 

“We're trying to get more staffing, and we're trying to staff the Blanchard station that is in the north end of our district,” England said. “When you’re working on a temporary levy it’s hard to invest in a station. If that money goes away in two years, I would have hired personnel and I would have spent money on a station that I can no longer have people work out of.”

Expanding staffing would also allow for four firefighters per shift.

“Being able to run in teams of two rather than one team of three will really help us out,” England said. “It will give us a significant increase in our response time to the north end of our district.”

The estimated annual cost of the levy would be $32.70 per $100,000 taxable assessed property value. Using Zillow’s $590,000 median home price in Spirit Lake, the District’s website calculator indicates a resident would pay $62.54 more per year than they do now. The USDA estimates it costs $229 to $376 to feed a family of four every week.

“We’re not asking for the world,” England said. “We are trying to do our best to make sure that we are spending taxpayers' money as best we can, and take every dollar and stretch it as far as we can.”

In addition to staffing, operational costs are rising, in part because of general inflation and a confluence of major world events affecting supply and demand, England said.

“All of our equipment such as fire apparatus, turnouts, fuel costs, things of that nature, they’re rising,” England explained. “A new fire engine in today’s world is over $1 million.”

England and the Spirit Lake Fire Protection District hope people will vote yes on Nov. 3.

“When you don't have the personnel to respond to calls, obviously response times are going to go down as well, and ultimately that's what saves lives,” England said. “Whether you're going to a house fire or a cardiac arrest call, every second counts and we want to make sure that we are doing our best to provide fire protection and EMS for our district and our community.”