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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09/19/2023 02. Regional Fire Authority Presentation otTi.,.°.'t a, ____,) AGENDA YAKIMA CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING September 19, 2023 Fire Station 95 -807 E. Nob Hill Blvd, Yakima, WA 3:00 p.m. Special Meeting I This meeting will be conducted in person. 1. Roll Call 2. Regional Fire Authority Presentation 3. Adjournment The next meeting will be a City Council regular meeting on September 19, 2023 at 5:30 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers Any invocation that may be offered before the official start of the Council meeting shall be the voluntary offering of a private citizen, to and for the benefit of the Council. The views or beliefs expressed by the invocation speaker have not been previously reviewed or approved by the Council, and the Council does not endorse the religious beliefs or views of this, or any other speaker. A Council packet is available for review at the City Clerk's Office and on-line at www.yakimawa.gov. The City provides special accommodations, such as hearing devices, wheelchair space or language interpreters, for City meetings.Anyone needing special assistance please contact the City Clerk's office at(509) 575-6037 at least two business days prior to the meeting.All meetings are live streamed on the City of Yakima website at www.yakimawa.gov and telecast live on Y-PAC, Spectrum Cable Channel 194. 1 o17.\'fl`'.°.'a a, . ga BUSINESS OF THE CITY COUNCIL YAKIMA, WASHINGTON AGENDA STATEMENT Item No. 2. For Meeting of: September 19, 2023 ITEM TITLE: Regional Fire Authority Presentation SUBMITTED BY: Aaron Markham, Yakima Fire Chief SUMMARY EXPLANATION: Agenda: 1. Roll Call 2. Regional Fire Authority Presentation 3. Open Forum 4.Adjournment ITEM BUDGETED: NA STRATEGIC PRIORITY: Public Safety APPROVED FOR SUBMITTAL BY THE CITY MANAGER RECOMMENDATION: ATTACHMENTS: Description Upload Date Type 0 Memo Snure 9/11/2023 Cover Memo ❑ Checklist Snure 9/13/2023 Cover Memo 2 SNURE LAW OFFICE, PSC A Professional Services Corporation Brian K. Snure Clark B. Snure brian@snurelaw.com 1930-2014 REGIONAL FIRE PROTECTION SERVICE AUTHORITIES (Yakima County Presentation) July 18, 2023 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Chapter 52.26 RCW outlines the basic statutory framework for creating RFAs. The RFA statute uses several key terms and contains several important provisions that guide much of the discussion that follows: Fire Protection Jurisdiction. Only"fire protection jurisdictions"may participate in the formation of an RFA. RCW 52.26.020 defines fire protection jurisdictions as "fire district, city, town, port district or Indian Tribe." As the participants in this study do not include port districts or Indian Tribes the following discussion of legal considerations does not address the additional issues that would be created by the participation of a port district of Indian Tribe. Regional fire protection service authority Planning Committee.RFAs are formed by a formally designated Planning Committee consisting of elected officials from the participating fire protection jurisdictions. The formation and role of the Planning Committees is more fully discussed under the Procedures section below. "Planning Committees." Regional fire protection service authority plan. Planning Committees are tasked with forming the"RFA Plan." The RFA Plan outlines the plan for governance,financing,operations,boundary changes, etc. and is the Plan the voters are asked to approve when voting on the formation of the RFA. The RFA plan is a critical document in the formation of the RFA and serves a role similar to a charter or constitution for the ongoing operation of the RFA. Governing Board. The legislative body of an RFA is referred to as a governing board. FORMATION PROCEDURES. Like any other type of significant consolidation, the formation of RFA requires careful planning. Because the RFA creates a new entity, there is an added layer of complexity to the planning. The new entity will need to register with the IRS, establish new accounts with the County and vendors, contracts will need to be assigned and negotiated, labor agreements need to be negotiated, payroll systems may need to be established, etc. In other words, the formation of a new entity can be 612 South 227'Street ♦ Des Moines,Washington 98198 • Telephone 206-824-5630 • Fax 206-824-9096 3 Page 2 incredibly time intensive and attention to detail is critical. The formation of an RFA is not subject to review by a Boundary Review Board or a County legislative authority. The formation of an RFA is, however, likely subject to compliance with the State Environmental Policy Act"SEPA". The actual statutory procedures to form a RFA are fairly straightforward. Formation of a Planning Committee. While the formation of a Planning Committee is the first procedural step, this step will likely follow many informal meetings and discussions by the participating jurisdictions. Most successful RFAs have established formal steering committees composed of a wide variety of stakeholders to determine the feasibility of creating a RFA far in advance of forming the actual Planning Committee. Each participating jurisdiction appoints 3 elected officials to the Planning Committee. The statute authorizes the Planning Committee members to be paid$70.00 per day or portion thereof not to exceed$700.00 per year for services for the Planning Committee. The statute also authorizes Planning Committees to receive state or county loans if appropriated. Operation of Planning Committee.At the first Planning Committee Meeting,the committee may elect officers and adopt rule and operating procedures. The Planning Committee may dissolve itself at any time by a majority vote and a participating jurisdiction may withdraw with 30 days written notice. The role of the Planning Committee is to develop the RFA Plan addressing the design, governance,financing and operation of the RFA (discussed in detail below). The Planning Committee must allow and encourage public input in plan development and the Planning Committee meetings should be held in compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act. RFA Plan Approval. Once the Planning Committee adopts the Plan,the legislative bodies of each of the participating jurisdictions must approve the Plan. If the Plan is approved by the participating jurisdictions a joint resolution calling for an election within each jurisdiction must be approved and submitted to the County to call for a single election throughout the proposed RFA boundaries. RFA Election. The election to approve formation of the RFA requires a simple majority unless a 60% revenue source is included in the Plan (i.e. benefit charge, EMS levy or excess levy). However, if all participating jurisdictions have an existing EMS levy, including an EMS levy in the RFA Plan does not trigger the 60% voter approval requirement and the simple majority rule would apply. If the voters do not approve the Plan, the Planning Committee may revise Plan and repeat process twice. If voters fail to approve on third try the Planning Committee is dissolved. RFA Formation. If approved by voters the formation date will be the date set forth in the RFA Plan. The effective date of the RFA is an important decision for a number of reasons. If the formation date is prior to October 1, the RFA will be able to levy a tax in the year it is formed for collection the following year. Regardless, the RFA will not begin to collect its own revenues until the year following formation. Accordingly, the Plan must address interim funding of the RFA from the effective date until it actually begins to collect tax revenues, i.e. May or June of the year following the effective date. This may be accomplished by the participating jurisdictions contributing funding or through a short-term loan. This approach gives staff the opportunity to create the new entity and to timely address the transfer of assets liabilities etc. prior to beginning RFA Overview Snure Law Office, PSC 4 Page 3 actual operations. Under this type of approach, the existing entities would continue providing service until the date specified in the Plan for the transfer of operations. THE RFA PLAN. The RFA Plan is the fundamental organizational document of the proposed RFA: The RFA plan allows the participating jurisdictions to essentially create their own government, subject to statutory and constitutional requirements. The Plan must include, at a minimum, the following elements: 1. Form of governance 2. Revenue sources and funding. 3. Assets and Liabilities 4. Organizational structure, employment, operations 5. Jurisdictional boundaries 6. Ambulance Services 7. Plan Amendments 1. RFA PLAN-FORM OF GOVERNANCE. RFAs are governed by a governing board consisting of elected officials of the participating jurisdictions. The RFA plan determines the exact composition of the governing board. As with most decisions in the formation of the RFA, the determination of the composition of the governing board is a discretionary decision of the Planning Committee. The RFA plan may provide that each participating jurisdiction is given an equal number of seats on the RFA governing board. While this allows each participating entity to have equal representation, depending on the respective populations of the participating jurisdictions, may or may not provide equal representation to the citizens of the RFA. If fire district commissioners are on a governing board the commissioners are elected as fire district commissioners in the same manner as if the RFA had not been formed and the fire protection district must remain in existence solely for the purpose of providing governing board members. City council members of an RFA governing board will generally be appointed by the City council. RCW 52.26.080(3) allows for the creation of RFA Commissioner positions. Under the statutory provisions an RFA Plan may include one or more RFA Commissioners to serve on the governing board. RFA Commissioners, unlike appointed fire commissioners or city council members, will be directly elected by the voters of the RFA. The term of RFA Commissioner positions must be established by the Plan and cannot exceed six years. If there are multiple positions, the terms must be staggered. In other respects, the RFA Commissioner positions are guided by Chapter 52.14 RCW,which governs fire protection district commissioners. These provisions require that the RFA commissioners take an oath of office, RFA Overview Snure Law Office, PSC 5 Page 4 permit compensation of the RFA Commissioners and allow RFA Commissioners to serve as volunteer firefighters with the unanimous consent of the governing board. The RFA plan may also create RFA commissioner districts and may create a governing board with a combination of elected officials of participating fire protection jurisdictions with RFA Commissioners, with or without commissioner districts. If commissioner districts are used, the districts must have approximately equal population and may be based, in part, on the jurisdictional boundaries of the participating fire protection jurisdictions. 2. RFA PLAN-REVENUE SOURCES AND FUNDING. The RFA Plan must establish the how the RFA is to be funded. Chapter 52.26 RCW establishes a number of potential funding sources that must be considered. The specific funding mechanism chosen will determine the voter approval requirements for the RFA Plan and will determine the financial impact of the formation of the RFA on any participating cities. Property Taxes. RFAs have statutory authority to impose a regular property tax levy of up to $1.50 per thousand of assessed valuation within its jurisdictional boundary pursuant to RCW 52.26.140. The statute authorizes three separate $.50 cent levies. In the event a city is one of the participating jurisdiction in an RFA,the city's tax capacity, but not necessarily its tax rate, is reduced. If a city becomes part of an RFA the city's property tax capacity can be no more than the City's maximum tax rate of$3.375 per thousand of assessed valuation, less the amount levied by the RFA.1 In addition, in the event the City has annexed into a library district RCW 84.52.044(2) provides that the City's maximum tax rate can be no more than $3.60 less the amount levied by the Library District, less the amount levied by the RFA. Although the formation of an RFA will reduce the City's tax levy capacity, the formation of the RFA will also directly reduce the City's expenses by the amount the City is currently paying toward fire protection and emergency medical services. In most situations,the loss of tax revenue is more than offset by the reduction in City expenses. In many situations this will create a scenario where the City taxpayers could experience an increase in taxation as a result of the formation of an RFA. The Planning Committee must be aware of these impacts and the City will either need to convince its voters that an increase is necessary or the City will need to take action to decrease its tax levy. EMS Levy.RFAs,with voter approval,may also levy a six-year,ten year or permanent emergency medical services levy under RCW 84.52.069 of up to $.50 per thousand of assessed valuation. If another entity is levying an EMS tax within the boundaries of the RFA, the RFA will not be able to levy an EMS tax. If the County is levying an EMS tax of less than $.50 the RFA may levy the unused portion. 1 If the City has a firemen's pension fund, the City can levy an additional $.225 is added to the City's maximum rate so the effect would be to reduce the city levy rate from$3.60 rather than $3.375. (This is similar to what occurs when a city annexes into a fire protection district). RFA Overview Snure Law Office, PSC 6 Page 5 Excess Levies. RFAs have statutory authority for the levying of taxes, if approved by the voters, in excess of statutory limitations. 84.52.052 contains specific authorization and procedural requirements for a taxing district to impose an excess levy within its boundaries. An excess levy authorization requires a sixty percent voter approval and the election must be validated. Excess levies are also often combined with the issuance of general obligation bonds and such levies will generally remain an obligation of the property owners that approved the excess levy even if there are subsequent boundary changes. Unlike fire protection districts, which may levy up to 4-year maintenance and operation excess levies and up to six years for capital projects, RFAs are limited to one-year maintenance and operation excess levies. Benefit charge. RCW 52.26.180 - .270 authorize a regional fire authority to impose a benefit charge.A benefit charge is a service fee and not a tax. The benefit charge applies to improvements to real property and personal property and professional assistance is required to establish the formula and basis for assessing the charge. If the RFA Plan submitted to the voters includes a finance plan that incorporates a benefit charge the plan must be approved by a 60% vote. If approved by the voters the benefit charge can constitute no more than 60%of the operating budget. The approval of a benefit charge also reduces the maximum tax levy from$1.50 to $1.00 but does not affect the EMS tax levy rate. If the RFA uses a benefit charge approach to financing, the impact on the City's taxing capacity discussed in the prior section is reduced by $.50 as the maximum levy rate reduction will be $1.00 rather than$1.50. EMS Fees. RCW 52.12.131 authorizes RFA to establish and collect charges for emergency medical services to reimburse it for the cost of providing the services. Impact Fees/Mitigation Fees. Fire Districts and RFAs have authority, in conjunction with counties and cities to impose impact fees under RCW 82.02.050 or voluntary mitigation fees under RCW 82.02.020 to address the impacts of growth on a fire district/RFA level of service. City Fire Departments also have this authority. Extra Territorial Service Fees.RCW 52.12.111 authorizes services outside the boundaries of the District/RFA "under conditions prescribed by the fire commissioners." This would allow the District/RFA to establish a fee schedule for out of area responses. If there are areas where the District/RFA knows in advance that it will regularly respond, the property owners in those areas should be notified in advance of the policy. This power is often used as an incentive to convince residents in an unincorporated area outside of a fire district/RFA to consent to annexing into the fire district/RFA. Burn Permit Fees and Response Recovery. RCW 52.12.108 and provisions of the Washington Clean Air Act authorizes a fire protection district/RFA that has elected to issue and require fire permits,to recover the costs of unauthorized burns from the property owner. Miscellaneous Revenue sources. A number of additional revenue sources are available for fire districts/RFAs including HAZMAT fees, donations, grants DUI cost recovery etc. Debt Financing. RFAs have authority to incur general indebtedness, issue bonds and general obligation bonds in a manner similar to fire protection districts. RFA Overview Snure Law Office, PSC 7 Page 6 3. RFA PLAN-ASSETS AND LIABILITIES. Chapter 52.26 RCW does not contain any mandatory asset transfer provisions. Accordingly, the transfer of assets and liabilities is largely a function of negotiation. The one exception to this may be voter approved bonded indebtedness where, as in other forms of consolidation, the voters that approved the debt will remain liable for the debt and,unless the debt is renegotiated,the properties' subject to a debt tax levy will remain subject to that levy until such time as the debt is repaid. The RFA Plan must clearly address the asset and liability transfer issues. In addition to the Plan there may be a need for additional agreements between the City and RFA designed to address asset and liability transfers. 4. RFA PLAN—ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE,EMPLOYMENT, OPERATIONS. The organization, operations and service levels of the RFA should also be addressed in the Plan. The Plan should contain language addressing the transfer of services from the existing providers to the RFA. Chapter 52.26 RCW does not provide any specific guidance on operations and service levels and, accordingly,the decisions of how to structure the operations, the level of services to be provided, and the organization of the RFA etc. are all left to the discretion of the participating jurisdictions. If a city is a participating jurisdiction the role of the RFA in fire inspections and investigations within city limits must be addressed either in the RFA plan or in a separate interlocal agreement. While RFAs have specific statutory authority to enforce fire codes, RFAs do not independently have police powers or the power to adopt fire codes. Many fire districts and RFAs provide code enforcement and fire investigation services to cities but the scope of services and the relationships between the fire service organization and the city must be carefully defined. Chapter 52.26 RCW establishes specific statutory protections and rights for the employees of the participating jurisdictions. RCW 52.26.100(4) establishes that all employees of the participating fire protection jurisdictions are transferred to the RFA on its creation date. Absent any agreements or RFA Plan provisions to the contrary, the employees are entitled to the rights, benefits and privileges they would have been entitled to as an employee of the participating jurisdiction including, rights to compensation, benefits, promotions etc. The statute prohibits the creation of new probationary periods. If one of the entities has a civil service system,the issue of whether the RFA will have civil service must be negotiated by the entity with civil service and its represented employees covered by civil service. If none of the participants have civil service, civil service is optional. Personnel issues are most appropriately handled by negotiations between the participating jurisdictions and their labor groups and by and between labor groups if different locals are to be combined as a result of the formation of an RFA. RFA Overview Snure Law Office, PSC 8 Page 7 5. RFA PLAN -JURISDICTIONAL BOUNDARIES. Creation of RFA. Unlike mergers and annexations, RFAs do not change the boundaries of the participating jurisdictions. Instead the participating jurisdictions continue to exist after the formation of the RFA. The jurisdictional boundaries of the RFA are coextensive with and overlay the jurisdictional boundaries of the participating fire protection jurisdictions. RCW 52.26.120 does authorize the dissolution of a participating fire protection district with voter approval. If the fire protection district commissioners are part of the governance board, the fire protection district would need to remain. However, if the fire district commissioners do not serve on the governance board, dissolution of the fire protection district would make sense. Expansion of RFA Boundaries. RFA's have the authority to annex adjacent fire protection jurisdictions. The annexation process requires the following procedural steps: 1) Consent of the RFA governing board to an amendment of its RFA plan to expand the boundaries of the RFA to include the adjacent fire protection jurisdiction; 2) Consent of the legislative body of the adjacent fire protection jurisdiction to the annexation and the RFA Plan and; 3)A simple majority vote of the voters of the adjacent fire protection jurisdiction approving the annexation and the RFA plan amendment. The annexation of a new participating fire protection jurisdiction into an existing RFA requires the same type of planning that occurred in the original formation of the RFA. The RFA governing board will need to work with the adjacent participating fire protection jurisdiction to determine how the annexation will affect governance, financing, employment and operations of the RFA. In addition,the RFA Plan amendment should address asset and liabilities transfers between the RFA and the annexing jurisdiction. Two additional provisions of chapter 52.26 RCW directly address boundary changes. RCW 52.26.110 contains provisions allowing an RFA to withdraw areas and reannex areas to address tax limitation and uniformity issues. This statute has a narrow purpose and requires coordinated action between the RFA and the city, town or fire protection district depending in which jurisdiction the property to be withdrawn or annexed is located. RCW 52.26.290 provides limited guidance for annexations by participating jurisdictions while part of an RFA: Territory that is annexed to a participating jurisdiction is annexed to the authority as of the effective date of the annexation. The statutes regarding transfer of assets and employees do not apply to the participating jurisdictions in the annexation. Finally, RCW 52.26.090(l)(g) provides that for RFAs that include a fire protection district, the provisions of Title 52 RCW will,unless provided otherwise in the RFA plan,control.Accordingly, absent specific provisions to the contrary, such a RFA will be governed by the provisions of RCW 52.04 (annexations) and RCW 52.06 (mergers). This approach works well for annexations of incorporated areas by the RFA and for partial mergers between the RFA and neighboring fire protection jurisdictions. RFA Overview Snure Law Office, PSC 9 Page 8 6. RFA PLAN—AMBULANCE SERVICES. The Plan may also provide for the establishment of an ambulance system provided that there are no existing ambulances services adequately serving the jurisdictions. This restriction on competing with existing ambulance systems is common to cities but not fire protection districts. Accordingly, if a fire district and a City are contemplating formation of an RFA and the district provides its own ambulance service while the city receives services from a private ambulance company, the fire district could be required to terminate its ambulance service as a condition of participating in the RFA. If termination of the ambulance service is not feasible, the city and district could consider an annexation of the city into the district as an alternative. 7. RFA PLAN—PLAN AMENDMENTS. The plan must also identify those portions of the plan that may be amended by the governing board and those that can only be amended with voter approval. Jurisdictions should be cautious in requiring voter approval for plan changes as the restriction could unnecessarily limit the ability of the RFA to address changing circumstances. However, the Plan cannot override statutory election requirements. For example, the a RFA could not establish a financing plan based on a property tax and after voter approval amend the plan to adopt a benefit charge without a vote of the people. RFA Overview Snure Law Office,PSC 10 C RFA Creation - Procedural Checklist 11 RFA CREATION - PROCEDURAL CHECKLIST Two or more adjacent Fire Protection Jurisdictions"FPJ"may participate in the creation of a Regional Fire Protection Service Authority"RFA". Each FPJ appoints 3 elected officials, by resolution,to Planning Committee. This formal step will likely follow informal planning meetings between the FPJs. First Planning Committee Meeting Appoint officers(optional) Adopt rules and board operating procedures(optional) Planning Committee develops Regional Fire Protection Service Authority Service Plan"Plan" addressing design,financing and development of RFA. Must allow and encourage public input in plan development Plan will include,at a minimum,the following elements: Revenue sources and funding plan. Form of governance Organizational structure,employment,operations Asset transfers, capital facilities planning Planning Committee adopts Plan and forwards to governing boards of FPJs to call a single election in the entire proposed RFA area. Election to approve formation of RFA requires simple majority unless a 60% revenue source is included in the Plan(i.e.benefit charge, EMS levy or excess levy). If not approved Planning Committee may revise Plan and repeat process twice,if voters fail to approve on third try,Planning Committee is dissolved. If approved by voters, formation date will be the date established in Plan. Note, RFA will not begin to levy taxes or collect its own revenues until the year following formation (unless formed on or before September 30). Plan must address interim funding. Thirty days from election certification validity of the RFA may be challenged. RFA begins operation under governing board as defined in Plan. Fire district board may, by resolution, initiate proceedings for dissolution of any fire district within the RFA, by majority vote of the fire district's registered voters, pursuant to RCW 52.26.120. Snure Law Office,PSC 612 S.227th St. Des Moines,WA 98198 206-824=5630 Brian@snurelaw.com