The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) centralized fire service, unveiled at last week’s board meeting, was not what many feared. It seemed to compliment, rather than replace, the District’s seven volunteer fire departments. Cortes Currents reached out to Mark Vonesch (MV), the Regional Director for our area, for a more in depth perspective.
MV: “The size of this service is quite small and it’s really just funding two full-time jobs to provide some general administration support around the things that rural fire departments and the regional district need to coordinate more on. I think it makes sense both for rural fire departments in the Strathcona Regional District and the regional district itself to have some shared administration.”
“It’s going to make it easier for rural fire departments. It is going to make it easier for the regional district to make sure that all the rural fire departments are meeting regulations and that inspections are happening in a coordinated and uniformed way. We’re looking at training and inspections in ways that are smart for everybody.”
“This is not going to cost very much money. We’re looking at roughly $16 per property owner, if your property’s $800,000. The average is less than that in Cortes. This is a very small cost that is going to provide some shared admin support for rural fire departments.”
“My first impression of this is that it actually makes a lot of sense. It’s something worth supporting. I think it’s going to ultimately bring down the budget that the Cortes Fire Department is going to require moving forward, as we share some administration, particularly around training inspections, regulatory requirements, simple bulk purchasing and general administration.”
Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch (DL) brought three options to last week’s board meeting. This is the clip in which he introduces an alternative to establishing a new regional fire administration.
DL: “So it was brought to my attention that we could possibly look at this within the general admin. My first instinct was no, but upon further examination, communicating with municipal affairs, this specific service could be built within the general admin service. I think there’s an advantage to this.”
“Don’t get it in your mind that you can shove anything in general admin. I don’t want the board to think that.”
“But in this service, one of the advantages could be that you don’t have to go out for public approval to create a new service. And because the general admin is a service right now, you could hit the ground rolling.”
“We’re too late for requisition collection on new services, but if it’s embedded in an existing service, you could run that service into a slight deficit for the year.”
“We haven’t done that before, but it was brought to my attention and Municipal Affairs was fine with it.”
CC: What will the board be deciding?
ML: “There’s three different options that are going to be before the regional directors in the next board meeting. One is that we create a brand new service, two that we put this in the general administration service that we already have established and running. Or three, we don’t pursue this at all.”
“Of course people can make amendments to those motions and people can make new motions if they want, but right now I’m leaning towards option two, which is putting it into a general administration service because we can get this up and running right away.”
“I think there’s going to be support on the board for the service in general and I think people are going to lean towards option two, but we’ll see in the next meeting.”
CC: I’m just thinking …
MV: “You never really know till it happens.”
(Laughter)
MV: “Part of our job as directors is to go into these meetings with an open mind, not having made a decision right now, but to hear what other folks have to say and try and make the best decision for the whole district.”
Assuming that the Board goes with option 2, and it does reduce costs, Cortes Island home owners will not see an immediate relief in their property taxes. The 2023 budget has already been approved and it includes the increases needed for our fire department to become compliant with the new provincial regulations coming into effect next year. There won’t be any reductions in the tax levy for Cortes Island’s fire service before 2024 and at this point we haven’t been guaranteed there will be a reduction.
CC: Is there a downside to the SRD’s proposed fire service?
MV: “I’m not seeing a downside, it doesn’t seem like it right now. If your property’s worth $800,000, then you’re going to be paying $16 for this and I’m guessing that’s going to be at least saved in the Cortes Fire Department’s budget. So this is going to be cost neutral, maybe even cost negative and people’s taxes are going to go down.”
Links of Interest:
- SRD considering a ‘shopping list’ approach for centralized fire service
- CIFFA: Will Cortes Island lose its volunteer Fire Department?
- SRD Board; Cortes Island Fire Department needs more money
- Articles about the Cortes Island Fire Department on Cortes Currents
Top image credit: David Leitch explaining option 2 to the Board. Chair Mark Baker and Regional Director John Rice are listening. – screenshot from meeting video
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