NCFPD finds revenue measure not immediately feasible

The North County Fire Protection District will postpone its effort for voter approval of a revenue measure.

The NCFPD board voted 5-0 Dec. 12 to accept a recommendation to postpone pursuit of a revenue measure until additional public outreach efforts increase the chance of passage for such a property tax increase, and future activities will include refining the public information message dissemination and determining the timing and extent of public outreach efforts.

“We discovered through this process that we need to do a better job of communicating to the public what our needs are,” NCFPD Fire Chief Steve Abbott said.

In May, NCFPD staff issued a request for proposals for a revenue measure feasibility analysis and public opinion survey. The board voted 3-1 June 27, with Ken Munson opposed and Ruth Harris absent, to authorize a contract with David Taussig and Associates. The Aug. 22 board meeting created an ad hoc committee of board members and NCFPD staff to define specific objectives to be achieved by a revenue measure.

The revenue measure could be a Community Facilities District, a general obligation bond or a benefit assessment. All three of those measures would increase property taxes for NCFPD landowners. A general obligation bond would involve a vote of all registered voters within the district and would require a two-thirds majority for passage. A Community Facilities District or a benefit assessment would involve a landowner vote and would need a simple majority for passage.

The NCFPD board held a special meeting Sept. 12 and authorized Strategy Research Institute to conduct a public opinion survey to determine the feasibility of pursuing a revenue measure. The ad hoc committee refined the survey information over the next month to reflect the district’s highest-priority challenges. The survey was conducted in November, and the results were presented to the ad hoc committee Dec. 1.

The survey evaluated various scenarios but indicated that the district currently lacks sufficient support to proceed with a revenue measure.

The district provided fire protection service only when the Fallbrook Fire Protection District became the North County Fire Protection District in 1986. Paramedic service was added in 1990 which increased personnel by 25 percent but with no new revenue source.

“We took on paramedic service in 1990 because nobody was providing it,” Abbott said. “Since that time we’ve been subsidizing that program.”

The funding for emergency medical operations has been at the expense of funding for facility upgrades.

“Our facilities have a fair amount of deferred maintenance,” Abbott said. “We’ve got needs we can’t meet in large part because we've been providing this extra level of service.”

Fallbrook Hospital closed in December 2014. Patients had been transported to that hospital by NCFPD ambulances, and transport to hospitals further away has increased mileage for district ambulances and the travel time for NCFPD staff. The insurance reimbursement rate has declined in recent years from approximately 70 percent to approximately 50 percent, and changing demographics in the community have increased the ratio of calls during a year from 70 to 100 calls per 1,000 population.

The district would first need to approve a financial commitment for an outreach program. An election ballot measure itself has an estimated cost of $30,000 if the proposal is on the ballot for a general election in which other jurisdictions share the cost of Registrar of Voters’ expenses.

“We won’t see something happen immediately, but beyond that I honestly don't know,” Abbott said.