When Larry Dzieza saw that a square root was part of a formula that Olympia and Tumwater were planning to propose that would calculate a new fee to cover some of the costs involved with providing fire and emergency medical services, the Olympia resident got curious.
The Olympia Tumwater Fire Authority Planning Committee has been working since August 2021 to present a plan to present to voters that would remove cities’ fire departments and place them in a new local government agency. The new regional fire authority (RFA) would have its own commission, budget and taxing powers, and the plan is to create a “fire benefit charge” (FBC) that would be additional revenues to the new authority.
Dzieza (pronounced, "jezza") created a website, Citizen Toolbox, that explains the complex issues involved in the discussions. The website includes three calculators that residents can use to estimate the FBC for residential, commercial and apartment-building parcels.
(The calculators are also available in this story in The JOLT.)
‘A big change’
Asked why he developed these calculators, Dzieza told The JOLT, "fire and emergency services are a critical part of what makes Olympia a great city, and this proposal would be a big change."
He pointed out that Olympia's Fire Department has achieved one of the highest ratings, Class 2, which was shared until recently with cities like Seattle, which only recently was upgraded to a Class 1 department. Higher class ratings result in lower insurance costs for property owners.
Dzieza is a former budget director and budget analyst for multiple state agencies. For several years also served as an adjunct professor at The Evergreen State College, teaching budget and finance and “digital government” to students in the college’s Master of Public Administration graduate program.
Dzieza has a long interest in trying to cut through complex government policies to make them understandable to the public.
“In addition to using arcane terms and acronyms, governments increasingly embed their policies into systems with formulas and algorithms that few, even in government, can understand, and it can hold biases that are both opaque and unchallengeable,” Dzieza said.
Concern about small houses and apartments
"When I found out the formula being proposed to determine what property owners would pay began with a square root of the square footage, my curiosity was triggered,” Dzieza said, adding, “the effect of that part of the proposed formula makes it inherently regressive, charging smaller properties at a higher square foot rate than larger properties. I felt that given the political culture of Olympia, our council would not knowingly adopt such a formula. So, I reached out to them."
Councilmember Jim Cooper requested at the October 10 meeting of the Olympia Tumwater Fire Authority Planning Committee that a fire benefit charge fee calculator be produced as soon as possible and placed online. He suggested it shouldn't be difficult. The cities’ RFA consultant, Karen Reed, hesitated and said, "I honestly don't know. I mean, it was a lift every week to get the 20 examples run, and we've got 26,000 parcels."
Given the uncertainty about getting the calculator to the council members and the public before the two city councils meet this Tuesday in a joint session, Dzieza worked to develop calculators that match the results of the few examples provided in the City Council's meeting packet for the October 25 meeting.
How large is your house?
The square feet you think you have are not necessarily the same as what the RFA would bill you for in its FBC.
The square footage measurements proposed to be used by the proposed RFA include not only the living area of residences but also garages, outbuildings with foundations, finished attics and basements.
Dzieza created a database of the parcels in Olympia and Tumwater that are in the area of the proposed regional fire authority. (That database is attached to this story as a .PDF file.)
Asked if he supports the RFA proposal, Dzieza stated he hasn't reached a conclusion about the wisdom of adopting it. "There are several issues that need to be more fully aired out, but certainly, one problem for me is the regressive nature of the proposed formula,” he said, adding his opinion that “smaller houses, apartments and businesses should not have to pay more per square foot than bigger ones. We already have too many regressive taxes in Washington, and we don't need our city to be creating another one."
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JulesJames
All smoke and mirrors. The core question is why an RFA? The answer is clear: circumvent the voter-imposed limitation on tax increases. I’m fine with convincing voters to lift the limit, I’m not OK with deceiving around them.
Monday, October 24, 2022 Report this
jimlazar
Jezza has it right. The "square root" is a tool to ensure that large property owners don't get hit with a big tax increase, and those costs are shifted to small property owners. Because big property owners are more likely to mount a campaign against the RFA, the consultant has proposed an approach that shifts costs to small business and residential consumers. This is reverse Robin Hood at its worst.
This proposal would eliminate the Olympia Fire Department and the Tumwater Fire Department, replacing it with a Regional Fire Authority with a separate board. That means our elected City Council will no longer set priorities and budgets. A quietly elected "special purpose district" would get to set the budget, set the taxes, and control the RFA. The opportunities for voter involvement will be minimal. (Can you name your Thurston Public Utility District board members? Can you name your Olympia School Board members?)
What Jezza does not mention is that the proposal is structured in a way that it would sharply cut funding for Olympia Parks. We voted in 2004 and again in 2016 to increase funding for parks. This measure would diminish parks funding by about $1 million per year. And they keep trying to hide that fact.
It's time for the Olympia and Tumwater City Councils to abandon this regressive proposal. If they need more money for adequate fire protection, the solution is to put a Levy Lid Lift before the voters. With a 50% approval, they can sharply increase property taxes. But those higher rates will apply equally to large and small homes and to large and small businesses. Much more fair.
Monday, October 24, 2022 Report this
JohnGear
Even before getting to whether the proposed funding algorithm is regressive (as it appears to be), the question we have to ask ourselves is whether a single-purpose special district entity is really a benefit. Even if there was a guarantee that nobody would pay a dime different for fire response, the concern is whether creating these single-purpose entities is good for the community as a whole, given the way that single-purpose entities focus entirely on their parochial interest and care nothing for the other interests that make up a community.
One of the virtues of having fire inside the city bureaucracy is that the council can force the fire department to consider things besides their own parochial priorities. If we have a special fire district with its own taxing authority, who will be able to tell them anything?
Think about getting into electric trucks -- fire trucks that sit still 99% of the time and only travel short distances the other 1% are pretty much a perfect use case for heavy electric vehicle applications. Diesel emissions are horrible and are health threats, and we need to decarbonize our fleets. With some foresight, we can start pushing diesel trucks out of our system and start buying electric, possibly charged with solar on the fire station roofs. That's the kind of decision that a city council can make, having priorities other than the single-point focus of working within the fire department paradigm.
Similarly, fire departments all over the country fight against measures for traffic calming and road diets, because they are locked into the behemoth fire truck model. A city council can weigh priorities other than fire response along with fire response, but a fire-only authority seems very unlikely to care about all the other aspects of what their choices cause for others.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 Report this
Southsoundguy
All this focus on how they will take our money, but I still haven’t seen a justification for why we need an RFA at all. Last I saw, the estimated benefits in response time are negligible compared to the wild cost increase (inefficiencies). And, the supposed benefits aren’t even solving and actual issue (lower response times for calls that are very infrequent). The RFA should be scrapped and the respective fire departments should seek real improvements and efficiencies within themselves.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 Report this
JamesGeluso
Jimlazar, you’ve mentioned this will cut into parks funding before. Please explain why you think this. I’m absolutely sure you’re incorrect, and this proposal will not affect parks funding, certainly not by $1 million a year.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 Report this
jimlazar
James Geluso, please trust me (and the City staff) on this.
Currently, under an interlocal agreement between the City of Olympia and the Olympia Metropolitan Parks District, the City is obligated to appropriate 11% of property tax revenues to Parks. This is highly unusual, but was a compromise made when the MPD was created to ensure that the City would NOT divert money away from parks, ensuring that the additional taxes collected by the MPD would indeed be ADDITIONAL funds for parks. The parks advocates insisted on this or would not support the passage of the MPD measure.
The creation of the RFA would transfer $1.00 of the City property tax authority to the RFA. The City property tax revenues would decline by almost half (with the RFA getting exactly that amount). Because the City would have less property tax, the obligation to commit 11% of property tax to parks would be 11% of a much smaller number.
I estimated this (based on the 2022 budget data) that Parks would lose about $765,000 per year.
The City Finance Director came before the city Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee recently, with a more detailed analysis than I had prepared. That analysis is based on the projected 2023 budget. It estimates the loss to parks to be $1.3 million. You can see that on the Presentation on this agenda item, in the PRAC meeting of Thursday, October 20. Slide 8 shows this calculation in the lower right hand corner. That can be accessed at the following link.
http://olympia.legistar.com/gateway.aspx?M=F&ID=9b3e6180-216d-479d-824a-132999a16f13.pdf
It is indeed unique that Olympia has dedicated "11% of the general fund" to Parks. The RFA would greatly reduce the revenues to the "general fund" because almost half of the property tax that now goes to the "general fund" would instead go directly to the RFA. The general fund would be smaller, but fire expenditures from the general fund would be zero. The net result is that Parks loses money, but the other general fund agencies (Police, Planning, Public Works, and City Manager, would have MORE money available.
It would be easy for the City Council to fix. The City Manager acknowledges that this would reduce parks funding. The city Finance Director acknowledges that this would reduce parks funding. The Finance Director estimates than changing the "11%" commitment to a "13%" commitment would keep parks funding whole.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 Report this
JamesGeluso
Jim Lazar contacted me and explained the Olympia situation. He’s right — without additional council action, the parks system will be vulnerable to funding dropping well below what voters specified it should be. The council can fix it, but he’s right to ring the alarm bell until they do.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022 Report this