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There are so many inaccuracies and statements that need correcting I will need to do it in installments. Let's begin with the most talked about and well-documented "not accurate" statement:

"the fire authority will provide sustainable funding for:

* 18 firefighters, staffing 2 basic life support units.

* A CARES team consisting of healthcare professionals to respond to non-emergency medical and mental health calls."

If you go to https://www.saveourfd.org/basic-life-support you can see the documentation that demonstrate the fact that the 18 firefighters and CARES in the RFA budget is a continuation of what Olympia is already going to do (Kudos to the Olympia City Council for a great idea) AND the money in the RFA budget plan comes from federal and other reimbursements, not from the property tax or the Fire Benefit Charge.

If the proponents try to argue that the federal funding is going away, then they need to tell the public how MORE the Fire Benefit Charge will go up to pay for it.

The SaveOurFD folks try to get the facts before the voters and let them evaluate the claims with their own eyes and critical thinking skills. Here is the source documentation from the RFA Financial plan that shows the funding for BLS/CARES as a separate revenue source that is not from the property tax nor the fire benefit charge under the line "Other Revenues". Below it is the detail of "Other Revenues" and at the bottom on line 44 you will see the "BLS Transport/CARES revenue-Oly". On line 45 an empty line awaiting a decision by Tumwater to get on board with their version of the programs. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HOsfkCORV4s2H3GqVG4_EbStubxE9uBz/view?usp=sharing

That’s right, Tumwater isn't even part of the 18 firefighters and CARES program funding in the RFA budget. Here is a brief snippet that proves my point (Transport means the Basic Life Support program with the 18 FTEs):

Transcript from June 13, 2022 RFA Meeting

"Transport and CARES - Olympia continues to work on implementation of that based on their FCS study. Tumwater has launched a parallel study by FCS to look at what would it take either for Tumwater to provide that service on our own or if you expanded this to the RFA, what would that look like?

We're probably a couple of months away from that. Pragmatically, I'd say just one of the challenges that has made the financial work complicated is doing trying to implement transport and cares while also putting together an RFA. And when we think about that bringing Tumwater into that and what that means, frankly it almost becomes insurmountable. And so this approach is one that I think allows us to proceed, allows Olympia to work through the implementation of transport and CARES and then if that's something that expands or could expand, that's a thing that RFA could do into the future."

You may also want to keep in mind that "sustainable funding" is an RFA code phrase for the newly elected RFA Board of Commissioners to be able to raise the Fire Benefit Charge up to $40 million more than the $10.5 million currently proposed without a vote of the people.

Stay tuned.