Antonia Fire Protection District officials are asking voters on April 3 to approve a 35-cent property tax increase that would be used to open all three of its firehouses 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Proposition Fire Safety requires a simple majority for passage, said Chief Mike Arnhart, and he has not heard of any organized opposition.
Currently, the district’s tax levy for the general fund is 93.3 cents per $100 assessed valuation, and the total levy, including taxes for the pension and dispatch funds, is $1.0027 per $100 assessed valuation. If the tax increase is approved, the tax levy would be $1.3527.
The tax increase would cost the owner of a home valued at $150,000 by the Jefferson County Assessor’s Office an additional $99.75 per year.
Arnhart said passage of the tax increase is extremely important for districtwide fire protection at all times.
Currently, only two of the three firehouses are staffed all day everyday – House 1 at the intersection of Old Hwy. M and Old Lemay Ferry Road and House 2 at the intersection of Hwy. M and Moss Hollow Road.
“The district is growing and (needs) to maintain pace with the growth,” Arnhart said. “With having only two staffed fire stations, one portion of our district has a longer response time due to not having their station staffed 24 hours a day. So, what we propose is to staff all three fire stations with three personnel per shift.”
If approved, the measure would bring in about $650,000 a year and would allow the district to staff House No. 3 on Old Hwy. 21 south in Otto.
Currently that house is not staffed, but volunteer firefighters run calls out of it.
Arnhart said that staffing all three houses would reduce response times and improve the district’s Insurance Service Office rating, which could lower homeowners’ insurance.
The district received a $1.6 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2017 to hire 14 firefighters. Four have left for job in other districts and have not been replaced, Arnhart said.
The district is in jeopardy of losing more of them because the grant money runs out in March 2019. But if the tax increase is passed, some of that money could be used to retain all 10 of those still on the roster.
“With the grant, which brings in roughly $750,000 a year, added to tax money bringing in roughly $1.9 million a year, we have an annual operating budget of about $2.65 million,” Arnhart said.
In November, district residents voted against a 50-cent property tax increase, 56 percent to 44 percent. Arnhart said district officials learned from that defeat.
“The fire district realized the public was not in favor of the 50-cent increase,” Arnhart said. “So we reviewed what we could do and decided 35 cents of additional support would permit us to maintain the three stations. Our goal is not to overburden the taxpayers by asking for something unreasonable based on the response to the 50 cents.”
Arnhart said the district would take a significant step backward should the measure fail on April 3.
“If it doesn’t get passed, come March 2019 (when the grant runs out), we will have to lay off 10 firefighters (out of the staff of 27),” he said. “Also, if it doesn’t pass, we’ll have to do financing for equipment replacement. We don’t want to do that, because that would be an extra burden on the budget.”
The district covers 36 square miles and encompasses a portion of Barnhart, Imperial, House Springs and Hillsboro.