So you want to do the math on this Prop 1 thing?
Every day I calculate projections for folks in our community as to what personal impact they may feel from passage of Prop 1.
The formula is not complicated, but it’s math. Math is not fun for a lot of folks, so I do it for them. I do it for anyone who asks from Joe Citizen to the Commons of Federal Way. We’ve given the formula to anyone who asks, including The Mirror, The News Tribune, elected officials, the Chamber of Commerce, Republicans, Democrats, homeowner’s associations, civic groups and more.
We’ve made more presentations than I can count after sending out notice to the community back in January that we would talk to anyone willing to listen. I’ve enjoyed those times and met a lot of interesting people along the way. Yes, we know times are tough for everyone, including public service. We looked at our options, we trimmed programs, left open positions unfilled and used our savings to make ends meet like everyone else.
We looked at our future options and knew we had two choices; we could cut programs and services back by having less firefighters or we could find a way to collect just enough additional revenue to keep the level of firefighters that we have now in place. Since we knew that lowering the number of firefighters would increase our response times, we knew we had to let our community decide if that was okay with them or if they would rather potentially pay a few dollars more.
Since we could not increase our levy rate past the current $1.50, we chose to present the Benefit Charge (Prop 1) as a solution. Don’t forget that your property tax is first lowered to $1.00, then the Benefit Charge is added. Some residential citizens will pay a few dollars more, some a few dollars less, businesses are larger and require more resources to defend and while they too may pay more, we have presented a commercial building factor that is more competitive than our neighboring communities who are already using the benefit charge. We’ve worked with the Chamber of Commerce at every opportunity as well as the Economic Development Committee and the City Council.
So, here it is for those that have not seen it. The basis for benefit charge assessments used or favored by most fire jurisdictions that have considered them is “fire flow.” The principle is that the basic unit of public fire service is delivery of water to the fire. Fire flow increases with fire load, a determination that accounts primarily for building construction type, use type and size (total area).
Therefore, the Board of Fire Commissioners has adopted the following fire flow based formula for the calculation of the benefit charge.
[SQRT(Square Feet) x 18] x CF x CPG x BF x Discount (If applicable)= BC
The Cost Per Gallon (CPG) figure is the projection at this point because we don’t have final assessed valuations from King County or total district square footage, and we don’t have a 2011 budget yet adopted. However, we have can project an assessed valuation range and a potential 2011 budget based off of our current firefighter staffing levels. So, for now, you can use 47.1624 for that number. If you like to project other possibilities use a number from 45 to 49. We should be somewhere in this range.
SQRT(Square Feet) * 18 * Construction Type
This is an ISO formula for determining fire flow (Ref: NFPA Handbook, 18th Ed., Ch 6, Water Flow Requirements for Fire Protection). We have used a Construction Type factor of “1” due to the variety of construction types in the district and the inability to determine the construction type for every structure from existing database information.
Therefore, since Construction Type is equal to “1”, we have not displayed this factor within the BC formula. The square footage includes your living square footage, garage, and any outbuilding over 120 square feet on record with King County. Carports and garages are included in the BC calculations while decks and porches are not.
Category Factors (CF):
Residential = 0.4649
Mobile Home = 0.3905
Multi-Family = 0.2808
Commercial
Comm 1 = 0.49 <2,900 sq. ft.
Comm 2 = 0.802 <5,200 sq. ft.
Comm 3 = 1.1 <10,000 sq. ft.
Comm 4 = 1.51 <25,000 sq. ft.
Comm 5 = 2.285 <150,000 sq. ft.
Comm 6 = 4.6 >150,000 sq. ft.
Categories are “Use Type” groups. Use Type information is obtained from the County database. Each Category Factor is a weighted value and is determined by evaluating the relative “benefit” provided to the category of structures. The benefit to each category of structures is proportional to the total square feet of improvements in the District.
Cost Per Gallon Factor (CPG): The Cost per Gallon Factor (CPG) is determined by dividing the total Supplemental Operating funds needed (Total BC) by the Total Fire Flow (SQRT(totsqft)*18) of the District. TotBC/TotFF = CPG
Balancing Factor (BF): The statute requires the district to specify the specific revenue amount to be collected via the BC program. The Balancing Factor is used to “fine-tune” the final calculations to all parcels to equitable and to help make the total benefit charge amount assessed be as specified by the Board of Fire Commissioners. The BF is .01.
Senior Citizen Discount: Seniors are eligible for the same discount rate they receive for regular property taxes. This information is obtained from King County.
Call me or email me anytime with questions about how this may affect you.
Deputy Chief Gordie Olson
(206) 510-3192
Gordon.olson@southkingfire.org
