Key Peninsula Fire seeks permanent levy for medic services

For at least three decades, voters in Key Peninsula have routinely approved six- or 10-year tax levies to fund emergency medical services provided by Fire District 16.

Now the district, also known as the Key Peninsula Fire Department, is asking voters to make the levy permanent.

“The community has passed this levy time and time again, so it’s clear they want to support EMS services,” said Chief Dustin Morrow. “The board of commissioners thought it was time to ask voters to make it permanent.”

The ballot item, called Proposition 1, will appear on August 6 election ballot. It asks voters to approve a permanent property tax of 50 cents per thousand dollars of assessed valuation to support the district’s emergency medical response teams.

“Just like fire departments everywhere, we are finding EMS is now most of our business,” Chief Morrow said.

Last year, he noted, 1,329 calls of the 2,201 the department received were for medical emergencies, ranging from broken bones to heart attacks.

The Key Peninsula department covers about 65 square miles with a population of roughly 20,000. It has six stations, 24 full-time firefighters, seven support staff and “a couple dozen for the most dedicated, competent volunteer firefighters you could ask for,” Morrow said. All of the career staff and some of the volunteers are certified paramedics or emergency medical technicians.

The EMS levy is “vital to maintaining our level of service,” the chief said. “We have between 5 and 7 positions riding on this levy. If we don’t have those people, we are in trouble.”

Funds raised by the levy must be used specifically for emergency medical equipment, supplies, training and personnel. The last levy, passed in 2010, raised about a million dollars a year, the chief estimated. The district’s total budget is about $7 million, mostly from property taxes.

Calls to 911 in the Key Peninsula are more often for medical emergencies than fires, Morrow said

“In the last several weeks, we’ve had multiple cardiac arrests, some fatal traffic accidents, many slips and falls, head injuries, broken bones, seizures, you name it,” he said.

The Key Peninsula is mostly rural, he noted, and the residents tend to be very self-reliant.

“So when those kind of folks call for help, they really need help,” Morrow said, “We don’t get a lot of frivolous calls or false alarms. When they call us, it’s serious.”

If Proposition 1 is approved by voters, the district will not have to submit it again, although it may ask voters to reset the rate if property values change, the chief said. The 50-cent rate asked in the current proposal is the same as the levy that is expiring.

Morrow said there does not appear to be any organized opposition to the levy, “although I’ve had some pretty spirited discussions about taxes with some of our citizens.” District 16 commissioners advertised for someone to write an opposition statement for the voter’s pamphlet, he said, but no one responded.

This story was originally published July 30, 2019 at 9:57 AM.