The Lake St. Louis Fire Protection District was formed in 1972. The district covers about 7 square miles and has about 14,000 residents. There are currently 13 paid employees; 11 firefighters, a Fire Marshall and an Administrative Assistant. There are also 18 reserve or “volunteer” firefighters.
The Board of Directors is supposed to have 3 members, each elected for a six-year term, on a rotating basis with an election every two years. Due to resignations we have two positions open that will be filled in the April 5thelection; one for a 5-year term and one for a 2-year term.
As I walk around and talk to citizens there are a few questions that keep coming up and a few things that need to be clarified. I am going to present some of the facts below, hopefully without getting too far into the weeds.
The Lake St. Louis Fire District is an independent government unit, not part of any other agency. It is not a part of the City of Lake St. Louis. It is not a part of St. Charles County Government, or the Ambulance District. The Fire Board does not answer to the Mayor or County Council or the CA and it levies taxes independent of any other part of government. It stands alone.
The Fire District is funded almost exclusively by property taxes. There is a small amount of revenue from building permits and interest and miscellaneous, but it is not reliable or significant. The amount of property tax revenue we receive is around $1,300,000 per year. This money is a result of a tax of about $0.53 on each $100 of assessed value on each property owner. (There is a separate tax for pensions)
The biggest portion of our property taxes goes to schools. The rest of the property tax revenue paid in 2015 breaks down something like this:
The amount of property tax you pay each year depends on your assessed value and the specific tax levy for each of the government entities that an individual homeowner falls under. Your school district and fire district and city all have their own tax rates and you will pay the total based on which districts you live in. Half of the citizens of the City of Lake St. Louis are not in the Lake St. Louis Fire District.
The owner of a $250,000 house in our fire district will pay somewhere around $180 per year for fire protection.
Here is a comparison of all of the fire districts in St. Charles County and their tax levies:
And here is a graph of the St. Charles County Fire Districts. The lowest tax rates are in districts with volunteer firefighters, and the higher rates are in districts with paid profession staff. Some are mixed, with both paid and volunteer staff.
As you look at these numbers keep in mind that some of these districts have large commercial zones, which provide significantly more taxes than residential areas. The Lake St. Louis Fire District is almost entirely residential, and so homeowners must bear almost the entire cost of fire protection. Districts like Wentzville and O’Fallon generate considerably more revenue with each penny of property tax than we do. In our district an increase of $0.01 will net about $25,000 in revenue to the district.
Another thing to keep in mind is that state law limits the amount of tax revenue that can be collected. The Hancock Amendment, along with SB711 provide for a ‘rollback” of taxes in order to keep taxes from increasing due to inflation or higher assessments.
It is pretty confusing but the bottom line is that our revenues do not increase over time without the voters voting to increase taxes. If we need more revenue we will need to get voters to approve it, and even then there are limits and reductions.
The operating budget for our fire district is mostly for personnel expenses. Between salaries and insurance and payroll taxes and overtime most of the budget is dedicated to paying for employees. It would be nice if we could “trim fat” from other areas of the budget to get ourselves out of a deficit, but that is not possible given the numbers. (We still need to be frugal and we will, but there is not much “low hanging fruit” here)
The majority of the increase in our budget over the last few years has been in these personnel costs. Like everyone, the district has had to deal with rising health insurance costs, and this remains a big concern going forward.
The current paid staff of 13 only includes 11 firefighters, which is 1 short of the 12 needed to put 4 firefighters on each shift. It also does not include a Fire Chief. Acting Chief Clinton Gussner is currently doing double duty as a firefighter and a Chief. It is my understanding that the 2016 Budget includes salary for the full 12 firefighters, and so here is the breakdown of average cost per employee:
It takes 3 firefighters to man a pumper/rescue truck. By having 4 firefighters per shift we can ensure we will always be able to respond, even if someone is on vacation or out sick. If we only have one fire house then we are pretty close to being at the right number of firefighters to properly man it. We have also not addressed how best to use the reserve firefighters to cover our needs.
Right now revenue is about $150,000 short of our expenses in the current operating budget. One can see that is either $0.06 in additional property tax or a person and a half that we need to cut from payroll. I have not heard anyone call for cutting payroll, and therefore if all we do is raise taxes we are looking at a minimum $0.06 increase just to keep even. But that will not address the rising cost of health insurance or provide for salary inflation going forward, or provide a way to rebuild our reserve funds.These are the issues the Advisory committee is struggling with.
None of the above does anything to address our aging equipment. The fire district currently has no General Obligation Bonds (debt). Proposals have been made to issue bonds to fund the equipment and to provide for our other capital needs. This would also be something voters would have to approve per the Hancock Amendment. I am not a fan of debt, but we are going to look at all of the options and bonds are the most common way of funding needs for equipment like this.
I will leave the issue of funding equipment needs for next time. I believe the information above covers the basic operating budget and needs and hopefully clarifies a few things. As always I welcome your comments on how best to address these issues.
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