In response to the honorable Firefighter Ray Shjerven’s fact-filled letter to the editor (Feb. 19, Kent Reporter):
I have the utmost respect for the critical and dangerous professions of the military, police and firefighters and would never ask them to serve with less than the best equipment, conditions, health and retirement benefits and pay.
My earlier letter criticizing the fire benefit charges (FBCs) did not imply that any of those conditions should ever be withheld or reversed.
I wrote because of my disappointment in the FBC’s “initial sales job,” which verged on lies.
Two different firemen knocked on my door in 2010 and assured me that my property taxes would not increase when the Kent Regional Fire Authority and FBC was implemented, except as the annual property assessments fluctuate and because of the merger might even decrease my property taxes.
That was not true as the below six-year record for my home shows a 64.5 percent increase in FBC fees.
Standard fire taxes did fluctuate due to assessment revisions, but the increase was incrementally smaller than the FBC increases.
Pre-RFA and FBC costs did not approach this large property tax and fee growth.
2010 FBC = $0, 2011 FBC = $488.03,
2012 FBC=$590.50, 2013 FBC = $682.01,
2014 FBC = $712.24, 2015 FBC = $793.90,
2016 FBC = $756.07.
Perhaps the RFA and the Fire Governance Board should take a better look at their budget and spending habits by first charging all residents their assessed share.
Fact: I am aware of RFA area residents that have never been billed FBCs fees.
Fact: I have neighbors that have large outbuildings for which they have not been levied FBCs fees.
Fact: I pay $117.00/year more for my residence than commercial buildings of the same size.
A suggested simple budget adjustment might be to stop using those two huge $300,000 trucks to respond to medical calls (which are 77 percent of all fire calls) and invest in several quick response vehicles (QRVs) as other cities have, which cost about $35,000 each, fully medical response equipped and can operate more efficiently, quickly and spritely in heavy traffic conditions.
I concede the fire benefit charge fees are not the sole cause of homeowners forced exodus due to excessive property and other taxes, but rather a big contributor to the increased taxing, levies and fees imposed by the city of Kent, King County, state of Washington and federal government.
Once again, when will it all stop?
– Monte Fugate
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