Jay Hamlin 0:00 It's there. It's on the conference site. It's like the fourth link down please if you're interested in being on a committee next year, just reminding you that we're always looking for people to volunteer and be involved in learn something new about it one of the committees So anyway, that's all I want to say Robbie. Okay. So I see Jeff can jam and don't see Kevin yet I see Adam. See you safe thank Unknown Speaker 0:41 heavens not gonna be able to join us he got called away Jay Hamlin 0:43 so Okay, great. So we got the full group, Robbie and Lenore is Lenore on. Lenora Blauman 0:48 I am on okay. So very briefly, as we were planning this conference, a number of people said, We are beginning to experience notices of intention from fire districts and fire Commission's looking at some future activities mergers, forming larger districts separating from one another. And we would like some more information about what fire services have in mind for the future, letting them let it be able to do to help under the law and offering to learn more about what they can do to make more effective notices of intention. And I'll use as a very brief example of proposed merger in King County, including two fire districts which came in very quietly and stayed very quiet, which by the way, always makes me suspicious. And the board passed that and it went to election and it failed by 77%. And at least for King County, was one of the inspirations to see if we could get better communications going in this conference seemed like a good opportunity to do that. I first talked with Jeff Clark of Eastside Fire and Rescue, and then with Steve Wright, of the State Fire Chiefs, and they have been magnificent in putting together this panel, from whom you will hear immediately because I'm done. Jay Hamlin 2:39 And we have you guys up for 60 minutes, you can use all you want, Jeff, I think are you starting or other called spotlight youth? Start off? Unknown Speaker 2:49 Oh, wow, look at that, I feel my whole screen. Thank you. Well, first of all, an Orion and everyone else on the call, thank you very much for thinking of the fire service and inviting us to be part of this. I will be candid and let you know that as fire chiefs, there's very little we know about the boundary review process, or what the boundary Review Boards do. All of us have been through some of the boundary review process, and we see it as largely a, at least I see it as, as largely some paperwork that needs to get done and some timelines that need to be met. But it was quite eye opening to see how much effort goes into this. And so I thank you for your work. And I hope if nothing else, this will lead to a better understanding of what each of us do and what's coming on. And we can work better together. We have assembled a team and I'm going to let them do most of the talking today. I do just want to give a quick update from King County. And let you know that there are a lot of mergers, consolidations and contracts that are being considered within King County for the years to come. And I don't see that slowing down. I'm going to suspect that's the same statewide. And I'll certainly answer any questions down the road here. If if there are specific questions about what you might see coming forward, I do want to introduce the rest of the team. And first I'm gonna introduce Steve Wright from the state chiefs who actually deserves the credit for putting this team together because we asked Steve and he reached out through his vast network through the State Fire Chiefs to put this team together. And then I'll let him introduce the other two gentlemen, or at least one of them. Steve, you pick who to introduce after I pass it off. Unknown Speaker 4:25 I got it. So thank you very much. Certainly, the four of us are here to help share and answer questions, but chief Clark was correct. The Washington fire service for literally our whole generation of firefighters has been working on what we would consider a consolidation of agencies and and that used to happen through mergers or all sorts of different terms. But right now the one you hear most commonly which she comes to speak to is regional fire authorities, but the idea that how our state was set up in the early days, the cities had city services. So they had city fire departments, rural areas ended up forming special purpose districts that met specific needs or silos. So fire was one of those eventually included emergency medicine in the 70s, and 80s. But Originally, it was literally small town, little setup stuff. I mean, in Kitsap County, where I'm gonna speak from, there were originally 40, some fire districts, and we're down to six agencies right now. And those functional consolidations over the years made sense to all of us in how the services were broken up. And the state chiefs continues to work on helping agencies consolidate and do better with, with what they provide to the citizens in their regions. And so you will continue to see the fire service pushing this, it has been very successful for us. I don't have any memory of anybody unwinding one, once it happened, it always tends to move in a direction that people view as a positive, successful, better form of local government, and so on all, I'll introduce the other two. Chief Albright is down in Elma. And he's experienced a little bit of this down in Grays Harbor. And then people koski is over in Spokane, and he was definitely involved with the state sheets for many years was wonderful. He is our current past president and became sort of the subject matter expert, if you will, on RFA. So we're gonna let Jim run for a portion of this and then the other three of us I think we'll just chime in with stories or input from our region. So feel free to ask questions as chief Clark said, we're, we're just trying to help meet your need. We weren't 100% sure what it was. And we're hoping to start hit somewhere on the board. So people koski Unknown Speaker 6:49 it afternoon, everybody from sunny Spokane, although it's chilly today. So that is where as it's been, thankfully, and it looks like our wildfire Seasons come to an end. So that's that's a great thing. So again, welcome. Welcome from Spokane. Now, Jeff, would you do you want me to throw up some slides? Or how how do you want to go about doing this? What would be best for today? Unknown Speaker 7:10 If you if you normally talk from slides, I think that would be good. Do we have because Jim have controlled to be able to share some slides. Okay. Jay Hamlin 7:18 Sure. Yeah, I think that one shouldn't be a problem. Let me double check that have sharing on for others. Yeah. All participants so good. You should be able to go ahead. Unknown Speaker 7:41 Okay, can everybody see this slide there the first one? Yes. Okay. Very good. Thank you again. Welcome, everybody. I appreciate the opportunity. Jim. Well, koski I'm an Assistant Chief with Spokane County Fire district nine which is north Spokane area for those folks that aren't familiar with that part of the region. How was blessed to be part of the of the RFA process via putting an RFA together. I previously served as the fire chief for the city of Centralia and Lewis county fire district 12. And we were the first city fire district regional fire authority in Washington State. So the second one in Washington State and I got to learn a lot from that process as we were the second total and the first city fire district RFA. So far from an expert or a subject matter expert, I just know a little bit about the RFA process and the important elements leading up to taking that to the vote of the of the citizens or the vote of the electorate. And I'm going to review some of those things with you today. It's pretty exciting, though, from from an RFA perspective, because when we put this legislation together, one of the one of the great things about it is we have learned so many every single RFA that we put together, we learn something new from it, and quite frankly gets better every single time. So the discussion points that I have for today, specifically our two regional fire authorities and also going to promote the RFA implementation guide at the very end. When we when we started to put the RFA process together legislatively, we weren't quite sure how much interest we were going to have. We knew we were going to have a lot of interest, but we just weren't sure how we were going to proceed in regards to the fire service in Washington State. Mary Lynne Evans 9:39 Right at the right moment. Unknown Speaker 9:42 Yes, it was right at the right moment. For sure. And the thing about is we just weren't sure how popular was going to be and, and and when I say that is we you know we have we have annexations with and consolidations and, and I allays and Mary Lynne Evans 9:58 fire chiefs data Unknown Speaker 10:00 Yes, we did, we definitely got talking, which was great. But we, we have other mechanisms to bring similar and dissimilar entities together. But the RFA is really a hybrid. And we're going to talk about some of those hybrid components during the presentation. So as I mentioned earlier, I was I was involved with the second one in Washington State, and we weren't quite sure how I was going to go. But look, look at this now. We have 13 that come to my mind. And I could be even off with those all across the state of Washington, east to west, north to south, and we have other we have other ones that are currently in process in the planning committee phase. So we'll talk more about that. But you can see here Here are just some of the rfas. I know there's more being worked on in that planning committee process currently across the state. So let's let's talk a little bit about the RFA process and the legislation that came forward to us at the state chiefs level to help support it and then moving forward into what it is today. So it has been an option for the fire service in Washington State since 2004. There are other states that that utilize the fire authority process. Washington is not the only one California, Colorado, there are other states that have utilized the fire authority option for many, many years, much longer than the state of Washington. It is pursuant to our cw 5226, which is the fire authority, our CW. And the great thing in the hybrid nature of the RFA is it creates something different than what an annexation does bringing, you know, a dissimilar or city fire district together and there's a successor in a petitioner for that. It is different than a merger where a merger we have two similar sets, so to speak, fire districts that come together and they become one. But the RFA allows those dissimilar entities plus the uniqueness of of Port Authority or port districts, Indian tribes, etc, it would allow the opportunity for those to also join a fire authority. And I know there are fire entities across the state that have had this discussion with some of the tribal governance regarding having tribal governance join, join an existing RFA. So it is a unique hybrid. It is it is not a one size fits all solution, though it is just one option. And I think the key takeaway from today, and I'm sure Adam and others will will will elaborate on this is it's it's it's an option for a very specific set of circumstances or situations that the entities may have. It is not the end all save all, but it is a very unique option for definitely for the fire service and the poor districts in the Indian tribes. Jay Hamlin 13:03 Hey, Gemma, quick question from Dave Halton are all the current RFA is all in place. Unknown Speaker 13:09 Yes, the ones that we just reviewed, all those, those ones here are all in place. And as Steve mentioned earlier, we haven't really had from an RFA perspective, we haven't one that's haven't had one that's been formed, that has gone back to its previous form of governance. So to me, that means that it's successful, not without challenges, but they've all been successful. And there's been many others that have gone through the process, ie the planning committee, which we'll talk about here in a minute, that have decided at the end that the RFA isn't the best option. So maybe they've looked at an annexation, or a merger or some other sort of functional consolidation, or inner local, or they just decided that it wasn't the right time. And they have dissolved, which we'll talk a little bit more about here in a minute. So the regional fire authority in itself is generated by a plan. And the plan has to be to be developed by a planning committee per 5226. And that planning committee has a lot of different responsibilities. The predominant ones is to set up for the design of what the new entity would look like, how it would be financed or funded. And then what what it says here, fire protection and emergency services projects. But really, it's looking at all of the levels of service each one of the participating entities provides and how do you blend together and bring up before the voters for consideration? It's not a strategic plan. But it's if I'm a voter and I want to consider this What does this new entity look like? What is its identity, and what level of service will it provide the governance the financing the funding, if there's if If there's still, there's bonds in place, etc. What does that look like? And a lot of voters, quite frankly, being involved with many of those fire authorities that were on the screen before. What's in it for me as a taxpayer and a voter? Why is it going to be better? Why should I consider this and in theory from the fire districts perspective, or fire authorities perspective, why should I support it? So the plan is critical. The plan is what is voted on by the electorate. Jay Hamlin 15:28 I have a hand raised. Do you mind if we just interrupt her along Unknown Speaker 15:32 the way as I go right ahead. Jay Hamlin 15:33 Okay, Alison. Alison Sing 15:34 Yeah. Thank you. I live in Lynwood. And what we went through this gnomish County Regional fire district one consolidation. One of the things that we ran into from brb perspective because we have time limits like the 120 days 45 day announcement is that, I don't know if you guys have addressed it. But we ran into a situation when you have multiple fire districts, they're going to consolidate the ones that are consolidating into the new system, they have to dissolve their fire district. And then the issue of if the new fire authority is going to accept the liabilities in the in the equipment, that was a procedural thing, where we got into some timing issues, because the the law for dissolution requires certain kinds of action. If you disband the fire district board before, you know that the recommendation to have the fire district authority absorb their liabilities and their equipment, then it falls apart at that point in time. Have you guys dealt with that issue? Unknown Speaker 16:39 Yeah, Mr. Singh? That's that's a great, that's that's a great thing to bring up. So when we are often contacted for lessons learned, you know, what, what, what do I need to be aware of? That is definitely one of them. The timing, the notice, the dissolution to the fire districts, the board, how does the board survive, exist or become new? Those, you know, my ability to collect taxes as a new entity, there's a lot of different things that have to be considered. So when we are contacted by fire authority planning committees, and they want to know, you know what that looks like? Number one, we address it in our implementation guide. So to answer your question, yes, that at a high level that's been addressed to when they call and ask what it is, are we going present what it is one of those lessons learned? Those are some of those lessons learned. It's about communication, coordination, and timing that and how you build your timeline for achieving those deliverables or work product throughout the process. Alison Sing 17:38 Yeah, the other part was, you know, every fire district has to tell their people, the homeowners and everything, what their rates are going to be for fire protection. And so when you consolidate, the question always comes up as to whether the citizens will vote for the consolidation is, what is my rate going to be is going to be higher or lower, especially with raging real estate assessments going up? It's very, very difficult to sell that thing. And you may find out that even though the plan is I like the idea of regional fire districts, but the problem is that when you're facing your electorate, and they're facing financial issues, it makes it really difficult to sell the product. Unknown Speaker 18:20 Absolutely. And that's, you know, one of the questions that comes up a lot is how long does it take to do this? And it's, you know, it's it's not about it shouldn't be a fast or rest process, because you have to educate the community, the sitter's citizens, the voters taxpayers, what it is that you're asking them to consider? So you're absolutely right, those are all great lessons learned from the process that you had there in South Snohomish County. Yep. And so what and another piece that comes into play with that is if, if what is being proposed to fund the new entity, the fire authority is through a completely different mechanism where a lot of than than what a lot of the taxpayers are currently used to an example of that would be the maybe a fire district or to in the process utilizes a fire levy and an MS levy. But maybe the new proposed entity wants to use a fire benefit charge. And that's a whole new way to understand how taxes are collected, utilize via a formulary versus regular property taxes. So things like that definitely have to be worked out in advance, and make sure that that timing is done appropriately with that. So thank you for bringing that up. A fire authority is a junior taxing district. The boundaries have have to be reasonable or approximate with the two or more jurisdictions that are wanting to come together and this this is a changed in the legislation in the past couple of years. Prior to, I think three terms ago, you had to be adjacent or contiguous with another district or entity. Now it is proximate. And what that means is maybe there's a fire district in between maybe two or three other fire districts that doesn't want to participate, I can you can you can you still provide and still be considered as an RFA with with an entity in between? Or where you may have a body of water, but in the middle of the body of the water? Is the fire district boundaries? Is that proximate or does it have to be contiguous or adjacent? So I would imagine, although this has not come up a lot, I think it did in the grays Pacific South Beach, Westport RFA. I believe that was an issue at the beginning. But you know, from from a boundary Review Board perspective, this may be something that has to be in consideration in front of you. Alison Sing 20:48 Yeah, have you guys run into problems with the existing mutual aid agreements that currently exists? You know, law enforcement stuff, the same thing, fire districts at the same thing, you know, where you got intervening fire districts? And you have to, you have only one road to get to the other side? Have you run into any problems Unknown Speaker 21:06 there? From an RFA perspective, I'm not aware of those issues are up and automatic or mutual aid plan that wasn't addressed successfully with the new entity, okay. So it's created by the vote of the people, ie the taxpayers and the citizens. It operates pursuant to a plan and, and the way that I look at the fire authority plan, and the way I try to explain it to folks that are interested is, it's a transition plan, it's a plan to bring all the different entities similar, dissimilar, together, how to how to operate initially, and then other processes take place after that. So the plan isn't a strategic plan, one of the things that happens with a lot of RFA planning committees as they tried to build this 300 page elaborate, you know, strategic plan, but they're not even together yet. So the plan is a transitional plan that gets you from being, you know, since you know, separate to now joined, and for the first year, the plan is created by the planning committee, and we'll talk about the composition of the planning committee here in a minute. Again, it operates like a fire district, but just it's a hybrid, and funding and all those other subsets of how this new entity is going to operate, function, be administered, and and paid for is all addressed in the plan. Jay Hamlin 22:29 Yeah, I have a question from Mary Lynn. Unknown Speaker 22:31 Go ahead. Jay Hamlin 22:34 To go for Mary. I Mary Lynne Evans 22:35 don't mute myself. I was wondering if you could speak a little bit to how the public is involved in the planning committee? And perhaps that's what you're getting to? And what sort of public involvement you have before the plan is finished? Unknown Speaker 22:47 Absolutely. We are going to that is in the next couple of slides. And I'll address that when we get there. Is that all right? Jay Hamlin 22:55 Well, that's refer Yes. Unknown Speaker 22:58 All right, yes, I'll get to that. So as I mentioned earlier, any two or more fire protection jurisdictions that are approximal can create can create that fire authority. Each governing body of whatever those jurisdictions are, whether it's a tribe, a port, district, municipal Fire Department, etc, you, each one of those entities have to appoint three elected officials to serve. In some entities that's done via resolution, some city council may just appoint and make a committee appointment of three city council members to serve on that Planning Committee. But the RC W is very clear that each participating governing body has to have three elected officials to serve on that on that Planning Committee. And there are more. And I'll explain that here in a second. They may elect officers and adopt rules and procedures. And we have built rules and procedures for how those how those different or dissimilar governmental entities should, should respond and act so to speak, and what their responsibilities are on that Planning Committee, because there's a lot of uncertainty about that originally. And we came up with I think, with a really good rule set and procedures on how the planning committee operates and functions consistent with with law. And then the planning committee for some reason, if this doesn't work out, they start the process, and they decide that there's no efficiencies that are going to be gained by going forward with an RFA to the voters, they can vote by a majority to dissolve the planning committee if they would like. And then that's very specific by our cw, they have to give 30 days notice to each of those jurisdictions if they're going to dissolve. So when we talk about the planning committee, and so this goes to the question earlier, so we give an I say we the state chiefs and our implementation Guide, we give suggestions of model guidance specific to what that planning committee composition should look like. So we know already that the elected officials from each of the entities have to be there a total of three from each, we strongly suggest any internal stakeholders that are appropriate. So if you are if you are organized, and you have a labor union, labor union representation, volunteer Association participation, any subsets internally, that would be important, they should be all stakeholders at the planning committee table. And I say stakeholders that ought to be voting members, because the elected officials are the voting members to move forward with components of the plan. But but they should be at the table and be part of the plan development process. And then we suggest that business owners, the Chamber of Commerce, other community stakeholders that they feel would be appropriate, there's not guidance on who that specifically is, because that changes community to community, that those also should have a seat at the table to be part of the process, not a voting member, but to have inputs in the process. And quite frankly, as the planning committee develops the components of the plan, so those can be out there in the community, advocating for the process can be advocating for the plan, and the benefits of of said plan. So internal, external stakeholders, absolutely critical to the success of the plan, and then moving that forward to the voters for consideration. Did that answer your question from the very land? Very letterland? Is that is that answer your question? Yes, it's Mary Lynne Evans 26:47 very helpful. Actually, I was looking to hear but did not hear that just at large citizens can come or can be there are the meetings public, Unknown Speaker 26:58 the meetings are public, there are minutes taken. And you make notice, just like you would with any other public meeting, and so absolutely, citizens can sit in the audience, so to speak, in participate, but I was speaking earlier specific to the planning committee membership or our construction itself. Mary Lynne Evans 27:17 And you allow the tribes to decide who are the elected officials since they don't actually operate that way? Unknown Speaker 27:22 Correct. They would just have to have their three appointees to the committee. Right. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, absolutely. So the our CW states that the plan may authorize to establish a system of ambulance service to be operated by the RFA, we have had some, some RFPs that are dissimilar, that may not provide a specific level of Ambulance Service, maybe they provide a basic life support or EMT. And now they're going to provide a a an advanced life support or paramedic system, or maybe they didn't provide an ambulance system at all, or transport service. And now they will. So we've had a lot of different variations of that. So that can be in there. And there's some contractual obligations, if you have private ambulance in your community and how that works. And then the sources of revenue are required to be required to be in the plan, though they need to have public input and a development during the process. That's important. And then again, talking about the specific components of said plan. And then may include land use planning and input from surrounding cities and districts. So again, from like the was said earlier by Chief Clark, the boundary Review Board participation, and then also from the surrounding cities and fire districts that may be impacted. So this could be from a city or a fire district that has an automatic or mutual aid, as we discussed earlier, they may want to have a seat at the table. Where as you go through the process, or at least be invited. So the funding or we talked earlier slightly about benefit charges, regular property taxes, such as CMS and and property tax, fire, fire property tax revenues have to be addressed in the plan. If there's emergency medical service levies, we've had quite a few rfas that have come together where one our answering one fire district may have any Ms. Levy, and maybe the city that they're going to join does not there's a lot of lessons learned which I won't spend a lot on a lot of time on today. But if they're dissimilar in regards to revenue streams coming in, which definitely is with the city and a fire district, there's a lot of things that have to be worked out in advance of ever going out to the vote or I'm sorry, ever going out to the public with that plan. Lots of lessons learned there. So and as I think Allison, Mr. Mr. Singh, earlier said, bonds, excess levies if they're in place or not, Who, who, who continues to pay that debt? Is it the fire district that was previously in place, is it the new fire authority, all those items have to be worked out. So in regard To the development of the plan, each one of those governing bodies have to make decisions in regards to what that plan is going to look like. As I mentioned earlier, we talked about the proximal requirement, as opposed to adjacent. Now, what is the level of service or functional subsets that are going to be provided by the RFA. When we, when we when we start putting that group together, the planning committee, you know, the way that we call it one another, so to speak is each one of the participating entities that are interested, they send each other letters, and that they want to be part of that planning process, what what we've seen across the state is maybe two fire districts will begin the planning process, and they're seeing some of the work that's starting. So the next, the next fire district beside them wants to join in, or maybe a city decides to join in. So again, as long as the bylaws and the rules and the procedures of the planning committee allow it, you can have late comers come to the table, so to speak, if necessary. And as we talked about earlier, we talked about what that composition looks like. Unknown Speaker 31:09 We talked about the previously the rules and procedures of doing that. And what those look like are to identify the frequency of meetings, who's going to be the chair of that committee, the use of subcommittee so one of the things that we have seen almost with every single RFA, across the state is the elected officials are the ones that have the vote. And each one of those committee members basically oversee the work product that's being developed by the subcommittee. So most of the subcommittee work is then presented to the planning committee or those elected officials or representatives from those various entities. So with that said, I've had fire commissioners go, Well, this is gonna be a lot of work. For me, it's like well, actually, most of the time, the subcommittee's the fire chiefs, the other chief officers are doing the majority of the planning committee work or Endor, accomplishing work product, the the timeframe to build the final report should be determined. And again, I usually tell people that are interested in the process, give it six to 18 months at a minimum. And if you don't have a good relationship with the entity that you're looking to consider putting the fire authority together with you may have to give a little bit longer timeframe to do that. Alison Sing 32:28 Jim Allison St. Harrison? Yeah, if I were to ask you, what are the four or five key elements that would sell the RFA? Is it equipment consolidation much easier to buy, you know, standardized equipment? Is that salaries for the firefighters? What are what are the things that are the selling points for the taxpayers? Unknown Speaker 32:52 Well, if I can give you the top three or four and those, the one of the things that usually boils down to is, what is what is in it for me? If I vote yes, how's it going to make it better than what it is today? So look, I like to look at it from that perspective. So one is usually level of service, how is the level of service going to improve so I, what we caution fire districts and planning committees is, it's don't necessarily say it's going to be cheaper, because I don't think that many of the fire authorities that are put together now, they're not necessarily doing it for cheaper, but the level of service improvement is increased with the majority of those, or a participating entity, their service area sees an improved level of service in regards to perhaps Paramedic Services, etc. The economies and efficiencies of scale, so where maybe I can downsize 10 pieces of equipment in my fleet, there's a cost savings associated with that. So maybe I can put more firefighters and paramedics and EMTs on the street, to provide a higher level of service or more, that are on shift every day to improve my response performance, etc. So, you know, you know, be talking about those types of things that are tangible, to the taxpayer, to the customer. To the voter, I think it's really, really important and those again, level of service again, you know, is it going to cost me more or less and if it is what am I going to get for it. And the economies and the efficiencies of scale and or services provided to the total community once this is put together Alison Sing 34:26 is one of the major selling points the ability to cite capital improvements in the district more logically in terms of where you put your fire stations? Unknown Speaker 34:38 Yeah, and that comes to the efficiencies so to speak. And so yeah, I mean we've we've had it where we've had two fire stations that are from two separate entities that that are close to one another and have we looked at it from one entity as opposed to multiple, one of those fire stations would never been built. So we can you know, we can sort of speak close one of those fire stations so the building in the property and Have a cost savings that's associated with that, that we can reallocate somewhere else in the organization. We have we have had that happen along with, again, other, you know, equipments and other training facilities, etc. Throughout the 13 fire authorities that we have in place today. Thank you, Unknown Speaker 35:16 Jim. The internal efficiencies really stand out when you talk to the agencies that have done this and in areas that maybe the fire service thinks about, like training divisions where they're able to run a much more comprehensive program, including maybe the recruit training, things that used to have to be hired out to outside agencies. So there's, you know, acquiring equipment, like you mentioned, maybe it's supplies, it could be the MS program and how we interface with the regional Ms. network. So there, there are a lot of efficiencies that happened in house that we noticed, and it does truly improve that level of service to our own customers and helps. Unknown Speaker 36:01 Right and kind of coupling, what Steve said, in an example is we are going to blend three fire districts into one, we don't need to have three fire chiefs. And so we're gonna have one fire chief, and maybe through attrition, or reassignment, or whatever the case may be we can that the the economies of scale and the efficiencies that come with, right sizing the organizational structure, there's a cost savings with that as it is fleet, fire station, facilities, equipment, etc. Absolutely. So as we as we go through that planning committee development process, as soon as it's quick, some of the highlights is the vision of the RFA. What is the vision for this new entity coming together? Why is it better? What is the level of service? What are the efficiencies and economies of scale? If I'm a voter a tax payer, why should I support it? And what does it mean for me, which ties into the bullet number two? What are the services that are gonna be provided by the new entity? And another big one, Mr. Singh, you asked about what's what's really important one is, and I think it's come up in every single RFA development process is, how is it going to be, you know, how's it going to be administered? And how is it going to be governed? Because if we have a if we if we have a blended board, how is that going to happen, we've had some fire districts that have not dissolved immediately, just to provide elected officials to a joint governance board. And then the plan that says within a year, they'll dissolve the fire district for for various purposes. But if I know if I'm going to have a five member board, and I have a fire district that has five commissioners, well, all those fire commissioners aren't going to be coming across. So as an elected official, I'm not going to be on the board anymore, potentially. And I've seen that'd be a deal breaker with some of these fire authority processes, his positions being dissolved by the end outcome of putting the fire authority together. So having that conversation upfront of what that looks and feels like is very important. So how's it going to be governed? I'm sorry, go ahead. Alison Sing 38:10 Yeah, um, the other question that should the challenge for you is, how does the union affect because different organizations have different union firefighter unions, that doesn't that become a major headache times and consolidating? Unknown Speaker 38:25 Well, I mean, here, as I said earlier, the internal and external stakeholders are really important. That is one of the internal stakeholders that is absolutely critical. And I think we've we've seen now how much influence the the organized labor can have in the process. So one of the things we advocate for very, very much out in the open is making sure that labor is involved in the very beginning. If you have multiple locals that are going to come together in theory as one collective group, we strongly recommend negotiating What if contract in advance, so in the event that the fire authority is approved, what does that new contract look like? The bottom line is there's a lot of advocacy and, and, and support that can come from the labor group and other internal stakeholders that for most Fire Chiefs would want to have on their side and putting together an RFA. That's very critical to have them involved in the process. Unknown Speaker 39:22 The reality is a gym usually teaches this class in conjunction with the State Council, they have someone assigned to them, and it's taught together. And then the implementation guide, although we store it and have it on our website. It is also the State Council of firefighters implementation guide. It's a shared document because it's that important that everybody see that we're moving in a direction together, and you're right, if it's not, if they're not there. It can be the one of the straw that breaks Unknown Speaker 39:52 so we've seen some of the planning committees is all because of lack of labor support. Some of the groups that were coming together underneath the planning committee, they have very strong volunteer associations, we've also seen that become a challenge is not having internal support from the volunteer groups. That may be the workforce that they're there. As far as I'm concerned, they have as much influence as labor group does. If your workforce isn't going to support this, and they're either going to quit or go out and and openly oppose the process, it is likely not to be successful. And I think we all think we all realize that. Okay, just just moving along here begin with this whole planning committee process, because it is the key, we talked about earlier, the funding mechanism for that RFA, making sure well in advance of how how we are going to fund it, how are we proposing to fund it, or maybe that funding is incremental. It could be the dissolution of fire districts with existing bonds, and levies, it could be going from a completely non traditional system, such as a fire benefit charge, and a community that hasn't had one before. Making sure that's identified early, and understanding how to communicate that to the voters, the taxpayers, the community is absolutely critical to the success of the process. What is going to be the level of service the standards of cover to be utilized by the new entity? Ie, what is me, as a taxpayer, a member of the community voter? How am I going to receive better service by bringing this together? And if I'm going to pay more, what does that look like? The the makeup of the administrative team, how is it going to be managed and governed? And then again, the extent of that labor plays into this and as we said earlier, myself and Steve, absolutely critical to the success of the process. We talked about collective bargaining agreements, whether you know, they're they're similar and dissimilar, bringing those together well in advance. Usually what we have found if the if the collective bargaining agreements, the what if agreement is negotiated, so to speak, and if the RFA is approved, a lot of times that eases some of the concern from organized labor, and they often very supportive after that process is is has gone through. So well, what happens next, so the planning committee finalizes the RFA plan. And as I said earlier, we don't want to rush through this six to 18 months, is what we're often seeing, depending on the how good the relationships are, between the elected officials, the various entities, and the internal external stakeholders. The RFA plan is sent to the individual governing bodies, and each one of those governing bodies have to approve the plan before we continue to move forward. And I've been involved with processes where you'll have a city council meeting, if it's a city fire district RFA, you'll have a city council meeting where there'll be in the same room as the fire commissioners and the city council will open their meeting, the fire commissioners will open their meeting. And they'll have they'll go through this voting process and have a very symbolic meeting. Because this process means that much to them that they do it together, collectively. So again, both are all the governing body governing bodies must approve the plan individually. And then once approved by the governing bodies. The ballot language is already in theory should be already developed by the planning committee. It's gone through all the steps it needs to go through it, there's at the local level with the county etc. And then they have to make a determination on when it's going to go before the voters. And during that timeframe. The the the planning committee, the stakeholders, etc. are out in the community, educating the community on what this looks like and why they're asking for their consideration or support. Alison Sing 44:03 Just to clarify for Jim, again, I'm sorry for dominating with the questions. But when do you guys kick off the actual decision to go before the boundary board? Do you wait till after the elections over or you do it before? I mean, it's a timing issue all the time Unknown Speaker 44:20 of it? Yeah, well, what we what we because every every RFA is different. We recommend that the conversation with the brb happens before it goes to the voters just so if there's any issues as it is with the assessor, the county, city finance, we make sure we strongly recommend that all of those areas are addressed ever before you go to the voters. What you don't want to have happen is the voters consider and in theory, approve some sort of request via ballot and then all of a sudden, something's changed or something got missed or a timing issue is there or what we've seen in the past is a fire district are the new entity not having tax jurisdiction for the next following year, based off of when they went to the voters to ask for the fire authority to be approved. So go into the Brb, well in advance along with all the other external stakeholders at like I said at the city and county level, absolutely critical. Excuse me, Lenora Blauman 45:21 this is lindora. And in most cases, I actually cannot think of an exception now, it must come to the board before it can go to the voters. So that's something to keep in mind. Unknown Speaker 45:34 Excellent. Well, there you go. It has to you have no choice. As I mentioned earlier, the funding for the RFA has to be built in there. And then the other thing too, that's a timing issue are you is the RFA proposing a maybe an EMF levy that requires a supermajority approval, but it only requires a simple majority to pass the RFA. So there's some mechanics that have to be addressed well in advance and one of those is sitting down with the auditor and the assessor and understand the in the elections department, making sure that everybody is underneath the same level of understanding based off of what is being asked by the the new the new authority, if approved, because there are we have had some, we have had some issues where the, you know, one, one entity has any ms Levy, which requires a for the first time a supermajority to approve, and then another entity had had one in place. So it only be as simple. We all those mechanics must be worked out in advance ever before going to the voters. And it should be obviously before definitely before you draft your ballot language. So if if the RFA plan, again, it's the voters that are approving that plan is passed by the voters, the RFA goes into effect on the following January 1, or July 1, depending on the election. And that's a generality. And again, it's all about timing because to have tax jurisdiction, you have very specific deadlines that you have to meet. And if you don't have that, you have to wait the entire following year to have jurisdiction. So again, these are the lessons learned that we communicate for the planning committee to the planning committees that they need to keep into consideration. And well, if the RFA plan does not so again, they're very important that the note piece, it does not need to pass and all the individual areas it is combined voting of all the interested service areas. So you could in theory, have it fail in a small fire district where a larger or a couple entities that are larger, prevail, and regards to the vote. And that's important too. So, lastly, as I as I close my piece, one of the things I mentioned earlier, and Steve alluded to it also is we have developed what is called the RFA implementation guide. We've been in the state chiefs, along with washday Council firefighters, it we have just finished in the last two years, the revisions to that to try to get it up to snuff with the changes to the legislation. It does reside on the Washington Fire Chiefs website, along with a link from the State Council website to the WMC website, and our committee is very proud of the work that it's put together and trying to make it as simple as possible. And if you do go to the Washington Fire Chiefs website, you can use this tool underneath resources. And then really you kind of navigate your own way through any questions that you have. And then if it can't be answered on the website, or in one of the example documents, there are many of us that have gone through this now 13 different times that are more than willing to help and reach out and talk to those that are interested in considering the RFA. Okay. Jay Hamlin 49:17 I have a question from Courtney. Could you define what a benefit charging model is? Unknown Speaker 49:23 So a benefit service charge? Jay Hamlin 49:26 Courtney, do you want to Unknown Speaker 49:28 okay you referred to property taxes one model of charging and I think maybe it was benefit service charges the other and I've never heard of that. Unknown Speaker 49:36 Yeah, there's there's there's a funding mechanism in Washington state called the fire benefit charge and it's, it's different from what is considered normal MMS and fire levy. You know, collection. It uses a formulary based off of building type square footage, if it's a multifamily to a mobile Home etc. It utilizes a formulary as opposed to just $1. You know, $1.25 per per 1000 fire property, a levy amount, and but Unknown Speaker 50:12 it would still it would still be charged on someone's property tax bill, or how would it be collected? Yeah, Unknown Speaker 50:18 it's still it's still it's still charged on somebody's property tax bill. But it's based off of a formulary based off, I think, four or five different factors that I can adjust. And really what it takes into consideration are the resources necessary, and a specific building type to provide a level of service? So an example that would look like is if I lived in a single family residential, I would pay differently than somebody that an owner of a multifamily apartment building, as an example, and I don't achieve chief Clark, do you guys use the fire benefit church? Unknown Speaker 50:57 Yes, the fire benefit charges really, really frequent up here in King County, and we have one for fire district 10 and for Woodinville fire district, and basically locks in the property tax at $1. And then the fire benefit charge the benefit of that is spreading it out among the commercial versus the residential properties based on size of property, which is why they're popular here in King County, because homeowners pay a little less and businesses pay a little bit more. Unknown Speaker 51:24 And it's based off of demand and resources needed at an incident correct? Unknown Speaker 51:29 Yes, it did sizes that to the size of the building the resources that are needed to put out a fire based on the size and complexity of the building. Unknown Speaker 51:39 It takes into account things like the building construction, fire sprinklers, things of that nature, but it just shares the load differently, majorly transfers it a little bit away from the homeowner to the commercial and industrial type builder. Unknown Speaker 51:57 Does that just one last question. Does that ever include the EMF services because it seems that would be unrelated to the building type. Unknown Speaker 52:08 It doesn't cook well. Because EMF services and fire we most of us don't have separate budgets for that. That is true. But for those counties that that issue an EMF levy that is clear and separate from the fire benefit charge. Unknown Speaker 52:23 So examples of that would be King County, Thurston County, etc. Right. Unknown Speaker 52:30 Great. Thank you Jay Hamlin 52:32 for the questions. Alison Sing 52:37 It's Allison. Allison. I want to send a greeting to fire chief Jeff Clark. I have a colleague that worked in Sonoma County, who was solid waste manager and then he became alderwood. Water District General Manager. He's now McCall to water sewer Commissioner. Same name Jeff Clark. But I think he has me on the end of it. He says hi. Unknown Speaker 53:00 Okay. He spells his name funny then. Jay Hamlin 53:06 Other Other questions? don't see any. I sent a question to you. How you did? Henry. Henry RFA is restricted by geography adjacencies, or county borders? Unknown Speaker 53:30 So to answer that question, so it used to be had to be contiguous or adjacent. And now it's, it's proximal. So like I mentioned earlier, you In theory, if it's again, if it's, if it's reasonable to do so from my level of service perspective, you could skip over so to speak a section of another fire district, etc, for your fire authority, or it could be a body of water that's divided. Again, you're, you're not necessarily touching, but you are proximal to one another. And every, every question, when it's come to proximal usually goes back to the ability for the participating parties, fire districts, to defend how it's going to provide that level of service, with whatever it is that's in between, it could be a mountain range, it could be a body of water, it could be another fire district, etc. So we haven't had a lot of test with that change of language. But so far, every single time I believe it's been addressed and I know there was a challenge with that in the Grays Harbor fire authority specifically, they had a fire district, I think originally it wasn't going to participate. And that would have been down on that South Beach RFA, and they were going to have to need to jump jump over another fire district in order to form the RFA and I think they finally addressed that Unknown Speaker 54:57 it has helped a lot with the idea of There are people involved. We've mentioned, you know, labor groups, we've mentioned, Fire Chiefs being reduced. We've mentioned elected officials on their boards when dwindling down through this process. And, and and so you always have to put that people factor in there that you know, how's this going to affect me as an individual if if two of the three fire chiefs are going to retire and really helps move that along, knowing that only one is going to be left up, same thing goes with their left hand. So that idea of the proximal gives is given us the ability to work around, sometimes an agency that maybe just isn't right today, but they can come in later. And that's one of the beauties of the RFA process is it's expandable. And we can get it started with an agency can become established. And and then just continue to grow. Here in Kitsap. County, as I mentioned, you know, we originally had 40, some agencies now they're six, I fully believe 100 years from now, they'll just do one, it'll be off our regional fire authority for this county because it is a peninsula, and we are bordered on 99% of it by water. And so you know, those are the benefits of it. And it's really where people have been steering to over the last 1015 years. And that's why the State Council and the state sheets have been so active in trying to help and normally when agencies take this on and start the conversation, they often consider hiring a consultant to help them walk through the processes, and bird dog all the little parts and pieces of it. Unknown Speaker 56:35 adding on to what Steve said they're here in King County. You know, I truly believe that a couple decades from now, the right now there's about 30 fire departments in King County. And I really think there's going to be down we'll be down to three or four. When we get there that all the math makes sense to get there. It's about how we formulate and I think our phase will be prevalent in King County, we do have a few. But I think you're gonna see agencies come together and later forming RFA, the benefit will come starting the RFA in King County for whatever reason, once the first couple got going, it has been difficult to get our face to pass in King County just as an initial merger setup, but for whatever reason, that unique dynamic and I did want to comment early on, somebody on the call mentioned that there was a boundary review process between two fire districts in King County and it went down by 70 some percent. That was a great example labor killed that that election, they were on board early on and then there was a failure in keeping them on board and labour decided to go against that merger and that's why that went down on such a large percentage which is a great illustration of what Steve and Jim have been saying that we have to have everybody at the table and on board in order to get these things through. Lenora Blauman 57:50 But there's a I am Lenore I and I am the one who made the comment and it was an attempt for fire district and wouldn't Fire and Rescue to merge. The city of Bothell was located in between and they were surrounded by the city of shoreline and a couple of other entities and county and everybody was quiet as my son ice and I kept saying there's more out there and but nobody spoke up so there was nothing more I could do except to keep in mind this was before them and I'm so the board approved yet cuz that's the criteria and nobody from the public or any jurisdiction objected to it and then with all due respect everybody all hell broke loose up deal with and it was the based on what information I could glean it was the firefighters that were yeah yeah physicians as is always the case when these things go Unknown Speaker 58:59 on since that's occurred wouldn't Ville has now joined my agency by contract. So that just took actually that went live this week. So Haha, and North shores. North Shore is now in in discussions with neighboring departments about merging in a different way for now, the election process and King County for whatever reason whether it's a merger, an RFA, they have proven very, very difficult to pass because the smallest of opposition kills most anything on these types of things. And there seems to always be an opposition to a formal merger vote. In fact, I can't think of one that's passed recently in anything in the near near past here that's passed on that scale. Alison Sing 59:48 Question Henry asked something about whether the rfas have to remain in a single county. I think he wanted to find out if it can cross borders or not or destiny. He's self contained in Kern County. Unknown Speaker 1:00:03 No, that's a great I apologize. I didn't answer that clearly. So, you know, yes, it can cross borders. We have examples of that. We have the Valley Regional fire authority, that is Auburn Pacific, Algona. So that straddles both the King County Pierce County line. Okay, good. So yeah, that is that is one of the hybrid, unique features of this is of the RFA is that you can cross county lines, Lenora Blauman 1:00:27 and this is boring Leonora, again, however, have to go to all the counties that are involved separately, so every brb has. That's what happened Unknown Speaker 1:00:40 correctly, if you're gonna if you're gonna go over the county line, so to speak. You are it's almost double, double everything because you have to keep both counties in mind as you move forward with that process. Jay Hamlin 1:00:54 Any other questions? Does this go through the brb at all? Unknown Speaker 1:01:01 I'm sorry, was the question. Unknown Speaker 1:01:03 Does this go through the brb at all because, Lenora Blauman 1:01:06 yes, the LM one didn't go through us. Unknown Speaker 1:01:10 I know early on Well, they did the Elmo one actually is a merger or a fire authority. Unknown Speaker 1:01:17 I think fire authority. Unknown Speaker 1:01:20 So are we are we talking about the one from the Chief fullbright put together? Yes. Okay. I think that's it merger. Oh, okay. So a little bit different set of rules. I know at the very beginning some of the fire authorities because the newness of it didn't go to some of the br B's but I believe the last seven or eight of them have all gone before a brb Jay Hamlin 1:01:44 Danica, Danica, that's Lenora Blauman 1:01:45 correct. Okay. Thank you, Danica, Unknown Speaker 1:01:51 for that presentation. I'm Nika, Jay Hamlin 1:01:54 Nika, no problem. Unknown Speaker 1:01:56 I am the clerk for the Pierce County boundary Review Board. And I would consider myself still fairly new just because we don't have a lot of work. So I haven't had the opportunity to work with mergers or this RFA. So I'm sorry if you guys have kind of already spoken on this. But I guess I'm still a little bit confused. Is it one or the other? Or is it essentially trying to go to the RFA, I guess I'm confused with the different options. And then I heard you guys saying, for some counties or cities, it's not feasible for certain rules. I'm still a little bit confused about that part. Unknown Speaker 1:02:33 Sure. So the the RFA, the RFA process, a regional fire authority is one of a few options that entities have to bring their fire departments together. So in Washington state, we have you know, we can we can function and operate underneath interlocal agreements, it doesn't go to the vote of the vote of the people. It's an administrative agreement that you can blend, well, like chief Clark, they're basically operating underneath an IRA, I'm assuming. So you have one you may have, you have two governing boards, you have one fire chief, one admin, etc. And you're not so to speak commingling, you know, tax revenues, those types of things, those are separate, but you can still function as one. And usually that's put together as kind of a recording step to maybe be able to take it to the next, the next level, which would be either going to a merger and annexation, or a regional fire authority. So regional fire authority is is separate on its own, it doesn't have to repeat, it doesn't have to be it doesn't lead to anything else necessarily. It's just one of the few mechanisms we have in Washington State to bring those entities together. Under using will utilize in a merger. Those have to be similar entities. So we'll just call those fire districts so fire districts, they converge to one to one three into one. A annexation usually and the fire service context of that is a fire district and exceed the City Fire Department or City Fire resources into the fire district. Sometimes you see it the reverse it out but it's usually the city being annexed into the fire district for fire ndms provision. And then we have a regional fire authority. So those are our predominant mechanisms to put fire districts, misfiring municipalities together in Washington State. Unknown Speaker 1:04:29 And then at this, but this time, it's not that one is, is one preferred over the other or it's just these are your options. Unknown Speaker 1:04:37 These are your options. And like I mentioned earlier at the very beginning, the fire authority is just one option. As a matter of fact, even before people get to the planning committee process, we asked them to consider all the different options to choose what is best for them and, and it could be something that is consecutive, maybe you go through with Chief Clark's doing and you form an interlocal agreement that brings A couple entities together. And then after that relationship hopefully goes really, really well. Now it's time to formalize things. So, you know, you have the city of Woodinville, in this case and East, you know, you got, you know, Eastside Fire and Rescue, they would come together utilizing whatever model they felt is appropriate that they think their community is going to support that allows them to provide the best level of service possible it could be, could be an annexation, it could be a regional fire authority, whatever is best for the situation, and everybody's situation is different. The fire authority is a hybrid, but we see mergers and annexations occurring across the state every single year of fire protection districts and municipal. Jay Hamlin 1:05:45 Thank you. We've reached the end of our time, Robbie, got a rep. Or an IRA. But you guys are awesome. That is excellent presentation. Lenora Blauman 1:05:57 Oh, it is once again, Lenore, thank you all very, very much. I know I stopped you relentlessly and seems to have paid off. Thank you. Jay Hamlin 1:06:08 Yes. Excellent. Lenora Blauman 1:06:09 I know we've learned a lot. And now we know where to find you if we need you. Alison Sing 1:06:15 Hey, thanks so much. Thank you. Jay Hamlin 1:06:19 For your question. I'm sorry, Henry. Did you had something real quick question? Yeah. nificant cost differential between the different models? Unknown Speaker 1:06:33 I'm sorry, Henry. Jay Hamlin 1:06:34 Is there a significant cost difference between the models? Unknown Speaker 1:06:37 No. And I say that is because it is just depends on what the funding mechanism is going to be. So we see fire authorities that are that are that are less expensive than maybe a fire district merger. So we see that so it's one option doesn't cost you more than another option. It is really the dynamics of the agencies coming together and what it's going to cost to provide service. Jay Hamlin 1:07:04 Thanks. You're welcome. Thank Unknown Speaker 1:07:06 you again for everybody. Really appreciate it. Jay Hamlin 1:07:09 Okay, so Transcribed by https://otter.ai