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	CCFD Officials Discuss Fire Tax With MVTAB

	By Vernon Robison Moapa Valley Progress The Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board heard a presentation from the Clark County Fire Department (CCFD) regarding Moapa Valley Fire District funding at a meeting held Wednesday, March 14. In the presentation, CCFD officials discussed the revenues and expenditures of the local fire district and laid the groundwork for a community discussion that will consider the assessment of a new property tax on local residents. This tax would be assessed to pay for the maintenance of full-time paramedic personnel in the Moapa Valley. “Instituting a property tax for paid personnel is really a community decision,” said CCFD Chief Steven Smith who was present at the meeting. “You have to consider whether the cost is worth the benefits that you would receive. Our goal is to provide as much information as possible for you to make the decisions.” Ed Zagalo, Strategic Services Manager for the CCFD, began the presentation with background on the Moapa Valley Fire District. The District was formed in 1964 under Nevada Revised Statute 474. It consists of three stations: Station 72 in Moapa, Station 73 in Logandale and Station 74 in Overton. The district covers a huge territory from the Lincoln County line on the north, to well inside the Lake Mead National Recreation area in the south. Zagalo reported that the district’s three stations had a total of 1,174 incidents that they were called to over the past year. About half of those were incidents which would require Advanced Life Support (ALS). These urgent ALS incidents are situations that require paramedic level response. The availability of the local volunteer fire stations to respond to these calls were quite low, Zagalo said. Station 72 ended up passing 56% of its calls off to another station because no volunteers were available to respond. Station 74 was unavailable for 39% of its calls and Station 73 passed off 19% of its calls. “If you compound these low availability numbers with the increased development that may occur in this area, there will be a real need here for a more full-time solution,” Zagalo said. But full-time service carries a heavy cost. A rescue unit consisting of a two-man, round-the-clock paramedic crew would cost the Moapa Valley Fire District $870,000, according to CCFD estimates. A full four-person crew, which is the CCFD’s preferred option, would cost an estimated $1.3 million. The Moapa Valley Fire District currently brings in average revenue of $635,000 per year, Zagalo said. This revenue comes solely from the District’s share of the Nevada State Consolidated Tax. Current average annual expenditures for the District add up to $453,000 leaving only about $180,000 in unspent revenues. “So you can see that we are still pretty short for full-time service,” Zagalo said. One way that the District could bring in additional revenue would be through assessing a property tax. By assessing a tax of nine cents per $100 of assessed property value, a household with $200,000 in assessed value would only pay an additional $64 per year and the District would raise revenues by $340,000 per year. But even with this tax, there would still be a shortfall of over $400,000 for a two-man crew and a shortfall of over $1.2 million for a four-man crew. Zagalo was asked where the .09% tax rate had come from and if there was a reason that the number couldn’t end up higher. He responded that the rate had come from the County’s budget documents and was identified as the amount that could be imposed for fire service. He also noted that Las Vegas valley residents pay a much higher rate, .2197%, for fire service. “I think that you could impose a higher tax but I’d have to check with the County to see,” Zagalo said. Much of the public discussion which followed the presentation centered on possible ways to adequately increase service at a cost that would be manageable for the community. MVTAB Chair, Judy Metz, stated that she had held lengthy discussions with CCFD official, Russ Cameron, who is also a Logandale resident, about ways the District might utilize off-duty CCFD paramedics living in the Moapa Valley to back up the volunteer staff when needed. “At any given time we have a half dozen off-duty paramedics here in the valley,” Metz said. “It would make sense that we utilize them if at all possible.” But it was always union policy that prevented this from happening, Metz said. Because the paramedics were volunteering at home for services they were being paid to provide at work, they were instructed by their union leaders that they were not allowed to run with the volunteers, Metz explained. Cameron, who was in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, explained that, while the Fair Labor Standards Act no longer allowed the CCFD paramedics to act as volunteers in their off-time, something might be arranged to allow them to be paid for the time that they were called to back up volunteer units. “If we provided paramedic service just for the time that it was needed, we could provide it for less than half the cost,” Cameron said. “I like the idea of paramedics being able to come out and help us when we have those tough calls,” Metz said. “It would raise the level of service significant and it would definitely be a lot cheaper than $800,000.” MVTAB member, Gene Houston, asked if some type of universal tax rate might be applied to all of the county that would help the rural areas in getting better emergency services. “I’m on the committee that has been working with the sanitation district,” Houston said. “We are working on establishing universal rates to help with these costs. Why couldn’t we do that with the Fire District? Somehow provide a subsidy that would support the shortfall.” “I’m not sure how that would work really,” responded Chief Smith. “The Moapa Valley Fire District is a sole and separate government entity. The CCFD is separate from that. We couldn’t subsidize the Moapa Valley District with funds from another area.” “If the Fire District is a sole, legal entity, is there a requirement that we have to contract our services through the CCFD?” asked Overton resident and Station 74 volunteer, Steve Getz. “Could we go out and see if we could contract through Mesquite or some other entity to get the same services cheaper?” “You are a legal entity under the state,” responded Smith. “But you are being governed by the Board of County Commissioners. It would be under their supervision and we would follow their word on it. Right now it is through the CCFD that all the services are met.” Metz requested that the subject of the property tax be placed as an agenda item at the next MVTAB meeting. At that point, the board could have additional questions answered and could come ready to act on the matter.