Medical Lake, District 3 fire annexation and levy pass

The organization that has been serving the citizens of Medical Lake for 115 years will soon be no more.

With the overwhelming passage of Proposition 1 earlier this month, the Medical Lake Fire Department will be annexed into Spokane Fire District 3 once the Tuesday, Aug. 6, election is certified by county officials.

Then the two fire departments will become one.

“The facts really spoke for themselves,” Medical Lake Fire Chief Jason Mayfield said. “I am super proud of our citizens for recognizing the need and taking this step.”

His priority when he became chief six years ago was to guarantee every citizen would get a response when they called 911, but it soon became clear it wasn’t going to happen, Mayfield said. By 2018 the department was only able to respond to three out of four emergency services calls in Medical Lake.

District 3 officials have guaranteed a 100 percent response rate once they take responsibility for fire and EMS services from Medical Lake.

But all these changes make for some confusing interim transitions, however.

Balancing the transition books

Medical Lake will gain financially from election results, according to City Administrator Doug Ross.

The city will continue to collect an EMS levy from its taxpayers through 2020. But because the levy is less than District 3’s levy rate, the city must also pass along about $16,000 per month from the city’s general fund per a transitional agreement between the two entities.

Meanwhile, vehicle titles and other paperwork will need to be completed to transfer the city’s fire apparatus and other equipment to District 3 possession, who will either use the equipment or surplus it based on its standard fleet replacement schedule, according to District 3 Fire Chief Cody Rohrbach.

Once the transition is complete beginning in 2021, Medical Lake will stop collecting its current EMS levy and will no longer be responsible for a fire department or its funding.

The city’s net annual savings will be approximately $60,000, according to Ross.

But 2021 is also when city residents will see an increase in their taxes when they start paying the full District 3 fire levy rate.

Medical Lake Fire Station renovation

So while things for Medical Lake administrators quiet down in terms of providing emergency services, they’ll be ramping up for District 3.

First, the current Medical Lake fire station will be getting an overhaul to allow for 24/7 staffing by emergency personnel.

“We’ve got preliminary plans drawn and we’re in the process of getting those to an architect,” Rohrbach said. “Start to finish we’re hoping to be done by next spring.”

He expected the Medical Lake station to be staffed by late spring or early summer.

Transitioning emergency services

While the Medical Lake station is being renovated, emergency service response will come from the district’s Station 33 in Four Lakes. While District 3 often provided mutual aid to the Medical Lake Fire Department in the past, they didn’t handle all of the departments approximately 650 annual calls.

Now they’re committed to handling them all, on top of the more than 600 response calls Station 33 already receives. To manage that increase, staffing at Station 33 will be immediately doubled to respond to the additional call volume, Rohrbach said.

The district will also be hiring more career firefighters, who will need to attend the recruit fire academy in Spokane, which starts in April and finishes mid-June, Rohrbach said.

Successful recruits will then be sent to staff the Medical Lake station.

Always short of volunteers, District 3 will also absorb “most of” Medical Lake’s volunteer firefighters who want to make the transition, Rohrbach said.

“Open arms for all their members in good standing,” he said.

In terms of officers, District 3’s typical leadership model is one captain and two lieutenants at each station. Rohrbach asked that Mayfield suggest which of his officers should be placed at which of the district’s 10 stations.

“We tried to give them maximum flexibility and ownership in that process,” Rohrbach said.

As for Mayfield, who is watching as the clock wind down on Medical Lake’s last fire chief, he wasn’t sure what his plans were or where he might land.

Rohrbach said Mayfield had been offered a captains position with District 3, but had yet to respond.

Mayfield, who is currently employed by American Medical Response, continued to maintain a humble attitude.

“None of this was about me, but about our citizens and the service we can provide them,” he said, noting he will be seeing the transition through to the end. “I haven’t made a 100 percent long-term plan.”

District 3 voters also approved by a 68 percent margin Proposition 2, a levy rate adjustment that maximizes the district’s levy to $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed value (AV). Due to levy cap provisions in state law that limit increases in tax collections to 1 percent per year, the levy had mathematically fallen to $1.41 per $1,000 AV.

Once the responsibility of Medical Lake, District 3 will now be responding to emergency calls from Lakeland Village and Eastern State Hospital, a task that Medical Lake has long been reimbursed by the state Department of Social and Health Services.

“We’re going to begin discussions with them,” Rohrbach said, noting they had been waiting for the results of the vote to open deliberations.

Asked if the district would be responding to calls there before reimbursement could be negotiated, Rohrbach said, “Absolutely.”

Lee Hughes can be reached at lee@cheneyfreepress.com.