Commission discusses new sales tax
What was left out of Unified Government Administrator Doug Bach’s budget proposal Thursday night was funding for the existing Fairfax fire station, No. 15.
UG Commissioner Melissa Bynum separately presented alternatives for funding after Bach’s budget presentation.
The funding alternatives included drawing funds from two of the UG’s reserve funds to pay for staffing and equipping the new Piper fire station near Hutton Road and Leavenworth Road and the existing Fairfax industrial district fire station. The Piper fire station is already built and waiting for staff, while the Fairfax station is currently operating. Bach had proposed to close the Fairfax station to get enough money to pay for staffing and equipment for the Piper station.
Another alternative discussed by Commissioner Bynum, who chaired a task force discussing the issue, was to put a sales tax increase on the ballot in November.
Perhaps the most controversial item in the budget discussion so far, the Piper fire station question displayed a rift between the administration, which proposed the closing of the Fairfax fire station, and several commissioners in favor of keeping the Fairfax station open. The Fairfax Industrial Association has opposed the closing of the Fairfax fire station.
Fire station funding proposals
At Thursday night’s fire station discussion, Commissioner Bynum said she asked the mayor to allow a small group to meet and identify if there any possible opportunities for keeping the Fairfax fire station and the new Piper fire station. Both stations are in Kansas City, Kansas. A task force including the mayor, the UG administrator, Bynum, Commissioners Tom Burroughs, Angela Markley and Gayle Townsend, met with other city officials and the Local 64 IAFF president.
The UG Commission previously had approved building a new Piper fire station, and it is now ready to go into operation, Commissioner Bynum said. The proposal from the UG administration was to close the Fairfax station and provide coverage to Fairfax from the Quindaro fire station. Staff and equipment would be moved from Fairfax to the new Piper station under the administration’s proposal. The Fairfax Industrial Association has disputed the figures used in a previous UG fire study.
The goals were to get through 2020 with short-term financing, then seek longer term stable resources, and not to remove or delay other departmental priorities, Commissioner Bynum said.
According to Commissioner Bynum, the cost to staff and equip the new fire station at Piper was $900,000 for personnel, all through overtime; $0 for a pumper since they would use existing equipment; and $315,000 for personnel in the fire academy, for a total of $1.215 million.
In 2021, the cost would be $1.9 million for personnel, $65,000 for a pumper, financed with the cost for one year; and $588,000 for overtime, for a total of $2.553 million, she said.
She said the task force spent a lot of time looking at the UG’s special funds. They identified two funds where there is money available, including the Special Assets fund and the Tourism and Convention fund balance.
Commissioner Bynum said the UG could potentially borrow the funding needed for the Piper fire station from the two funds. There was $1.432 million available in the Special Assets fund and $1.172 million available in the Tourism and Convention fund.
The task force also discussed the option of a public safety sales tax initiative on the November ballot, she said. The commission may want to discuss this more in the future, she said. There would be timelines to meet for placing it on the ballot for November, she added.
The current quarter-cent public safety sales tax in place raises about $6 million annually, she said. With an additional one-eighth sales tax, it could raise about $3 million, she said. With another quarter-cent sales tax, it would be around $6 million.
If they put a sales tax on the ballot, it would probably have an expiration date of about 10 years, according to Commissioner Bynum. The funds also might be used for other public safety buildings needed in the community, including for police and fire, she said.
The UG could use the two alternatives together, the use of the reserves for 2020 and the sales tax on the November ballot.
The task force also said the UG should seek other long-term revenue streams for ongoing operations costs, she said.
Commissioner Bynum said a past Kansas City, Kansas, Fire Department study listed a chart of all fire stations and stated, “maintain” next to the Fairfax station. She also stated that the Northeast Area Master Plan had a goal to keep the Fairfax fire station open. The Fairfax fire station was built around the time the new GM plant went in, and GM donated the land for the fire station.
There is also the opportunity for the Pierson Park consolidation of two fire stations to free up a fire company, she said. The UG budget contains $2.2 million to build that new fire station in the Turner area.
She said fire station funding aligned with the commission’s goal of safety, and that fire protection is in the top 10 on the community residents’ survey.
She also asked the UG to continue to seek any and all grant opportunities, and look for any CARES Act funding that could be used in the future.
“We still do have a fund balance, so if we decided it was important to keep all our fire stations operating, and we don’t like the idea of taking from these two fund balances out of these special funds, there is still a fund balance,” Commissioner Bynum said.
She asked the commission to continue talking about this and look at all opportunities before unilaterally saying the only solution to staffing a new Piper fire is to close Fairfax.
Part-time fire station idea
Commissioner Gayle Townsend then presented the “Solomon option.” She suggested that the fire crew and equipment from Fairfax could share time, equipment and personnel with the new station at Piper. Under that proposal, both stations would be part-time.
This proposal would be relatively neutral with regard to cost to the budget, she said.
She also said an alternative might be to leave a person or persons who could perform EMT services at Fairfax while the rest of the crew is transferred to Piper.
Commissioners’ response to ideas
Commissioner Angela Markley said if it is the will of the commission and community, then the task force plan is the best plan they could come up with given the budget constraints they are under.
Also, she asked commissioners to look at the big picture when they are making budget decisions. She urged commissioners to compare the items that the administrator said were not in the budget against the fire station. For example, the amount of money needed for a fire station is about the same amount that was needed not to furlough UG employees for 10 days, she said.
“Make sure in your mind that this station is more critical than any of those unfunded items, because if it’s not, then we’re not making the right decision for our community or for this commission,” Commissioner Markley said.
“I don’t think we’re going to be in a good budget position next year, either, and probably not in the year after that,” she said. It could be five years until they’re back in a good budget position, she added. If they take all the money this year, and take additional loans, then next year the money won’t be there to get a loan from, she added.
Commissioner Mike Kane said the idea of a sales tax was awesome and it worked in Kansas City, Missouri.
It’s taken three years and two months to build a Piper fire station, he said, and the study said they needed two fire stations.
“In my mind, safety is the overall priority. I think we need to push forward with Commissioner Bynum’s recommendation,” he said.
At an earlier meeting, Commissioner Kane said the UG should have applied for 100 percent federally funded firefighter positions for the new Piper fire station, but UG officials said they did not want to do that, as they then might have to pick up the cost of the positions in three years.
Commissioner Christian Ramirez said he supports Commissioner Bynum’s recommendations. What is proposed now may not be the final proposal, but allowing the conversations with the commission, the community and all those affected, will result in having a new fire station and also still protecting a very valuable part of the community in Fairfax, including the businesses there.
Commissioner Brian McKiernan said while it may appear that the closeness of the Quindaro and Fairfax stations make the coverage area redundant, there has been a lot of discussion about how the closure would put people at greater risk than they are today.
He would like to talk about whether they would be putting anyone or anything at measurable risk or greater risk by closing the Fairfax fire station.
Also, he said that there are large areas of funding should be considered across the entire community, and they should find a way to prioritize and find funding for them. For example, he mentioned fully funding the UG Health Department, so when it comes to the next pandemic, they’re better prepared to help the citizens.
He also said they should find ways to fund policies and programs that support residents who have lost jobs or suffered massive economic hardship through COVID-19. While the CARES Act may help, the residents who were treading water formerly are now drowning, he said. “Their recovery promotes our collective recovery,” he said.
That may come in the form of direct assistance or reducing taxes, he said. The economic recovery is expected to be prolonged and painful, he said.
Commissioner McKiernan also said he would support efforts that would reduce the negative impact of social determinants of health.
“There are some areas of our city that don’t even have what we are told is the minimum desired coverage, which is a 4-minute response time,” he said. He said they should consider providing coverage for those residents.
Commissioner Tom Burroughs said those needs of the community have been out there for decades, and it has been a challenge to meet all of those. But here, they were addressing a community request.
“As a public servant, we are obligated to listen to those that bring their concerns forward,” Commissioner Burroughs said.
He said it was his understanding that years ago, there was a proposal to close one of the fire stations near the University of Kansas Medical Center, and that closure was pulled out.
Currently, the commission is being asked by the Fairfax industrial district to keep the Fairfax fire station open. About 10,000 people work in the Fairfax district, where there are more than 100 businesses.
“They deserve to have the resources that they are due,” Commissioner Burroughs said.
“We have tremendous volatile liquids, volatile chemicals, processes, that it won’t take much before we have an incident,” he said. “What happens if the station on Quindaro is on call and we have an incident? Now the response time is even more.”
When it comes to public safety, he is a public safety advocate and he supports the recommendation by Commissioner Bynum, who has worked hard on this task force, Commissioner Burroughs said.
Mayor Alvey said even before the pandemic, there was data presented on coverage to continue to provide service to Fairfax, and he was not calling the data into question.
“When we want to talk about public safety, remember, we are not hiring 24 new police officers,” Mayor Alvey said. He said he notices people not stopping for stop signs, and they don’t have enough resources to enforce speed limits and traffic regulations. He’s concerned for public safety in not providing street preservation and street clearance, he said.
The number of furloughs, having to shut down operations, is not fulfilling the basic trust people have in government to be able to provide the services people need, he said.
“I’m seriously concerned that if we have an option, an opportunity to continue to provide the coverage that is needed in Fairfax, and I’m confident it does, what is proposed to us, that we need to continue with the proposal that has already been laid in front of us,” Mayor Alvey said.
There was no action taken on the Piper and Fairfax fire stations at the UG Commission meeting on Thursday night. They will be discussing it more in the future, according to commissioners.
To see the story about the UG administrator’s budget presentation on Thursday, visit https://wyandotteonline.com/ug-administrator-proposes-flat-mill-levy-rate-for-2021/.
To see an earlier story on the Fairfax fire station, visit https://wyandotteonline.com/plan-to-close-fairfax-fire-station-discussed/.
