Vashon fire department’s expenses will likely exceed its tax revenue by $1.1 million this year, forcing the district to tap its dwindling general reserve to cover operating costs.

The shortfall — far beyond what Chief Charlie Krimmert said he anticipated when he stepped into the job in January — has implications for day-to-day operations and has reached a critical level.

“I believe some sort of action is urgently needed,” he said. “If we do not take some sort of financial action, I believe we will have a historical negative impact on the district’s long-term future.”

In recent years, some of those connected to the department have expressed concern about the district’s financial health, as its once substantial reserves have declined. Despite the decreases in available funds, the board has not asked the community to raise taxes since 1990, while the district’s call volume and expenses have climbed. Last week, as part of his state of the district presentations, Krimmert made clear the seriousness of the current financial picture.

While the $1.1 million shortfall is partially mitigated this year by a one-time payment of $499,000 from King County as part of the paramedic transition, a substantial gap between income and expenses still exists. The 2017 budget is $3.5 million, while 2017 tax revenue is expected to be $2.4 million. The general reserve, now with $1.1 million in it — and expected to be substantially less by year’s end — is well below the one year’s worth of operating expenses Krimmert said he would like to see in the account. Moreover, those close to the district say the financial situation has a range of implications for day-to-day operations, including the district contending with a fleet of aging vehicles and a limited ability to repair its facilities beyond what is necessary to address crises that develop.

The limited funds also have a significant effect on staffing, with different members of the department expressing their concerns about the staffing picture to greater and lesser degrees.

Randy Tonkin, the head of the local firefighters’ union, said it is the union’s position that staffing levels are so low that they are inadequate and potentially unsafe for the community and for the firefighters themselves. He added that for many years, the union has expressed serious concerns about the financial health of the department and how it affects the numbers of staff. He noted that currently, the Vashon community is only guaranteed two paid firefighter/EMTs on shift at any time. On some shifts, there are additional volunteers or career staff, but there are also shifts where additional members are not present. For fires, this is problematic because according to state law, firefighters are unable to go into a burning house without a minimum of four people, two to go in and two who stay out. Regarding aid calls, when just two firefighters/EMTs are on shift, they are capable of responding to only one emergency medical call at a time.

“Simply put, we cannot do our job to ensure the safety of the community, and we cannot ensure our safety when we are doing our job,” Tonkin said.

In contrast, Krimmert said that while he would like the district to be more heavily staffed than it is, he believes it is the decisions the firefighters/EMTs make that will dictate if they are safe or not. It could be said that there are not enough people to safely fight a fire, he said, or that extra help might be needed to help lift a heavy patient.

“It’s those decisions that make us safe, not the immediate staffing,” he said, adding a point he has made before about the struggling district. “Until I can afford more staff, we are going to have to figure out how to fight fire.”

Assistant Chief Bob Larsen, who heads district operations, said that of the four shifts of firefighters/EMTs who work at Vashon Island Fire & Rescue, three shifts have three people on them and one shift has two. With the recent hiring of a firefighter, who is expected to be completed with training and working shifts by year’s end, each shift will have three. However, when someone is out for any reason, the number drops back down to two — a limitation the commissioners have set to avoid calling in a person and paying costly overtime.

“I would love to be able to afford to pay a third,” Larsen said. “I think that given our call volume, I would prefer to see three there.”

In a whiteboard presentation at the board meeting last week, Krimmert showed that the district’s current levy rate is 93 cents per $1,000 of assessed home value ($465 per year for a $500,000 home). With an increase to a rate of $1.20, the district would still be in the red — calculated with the recent 17 percent increase in assessed value of the island’s property figured in and assuming a 3 percent increase in the district’s budget. At $1.30, the district would be in the black by just $188,000 for the year; $1.40 would bring in $485,000 more than expenses, and $1.50 would bring in nearly $782,000 more than the budget would require.

At next week’s meeting, Krimmert will make recommendations to the board, providing commissioners with a range of potential courses of action they could take to address the situation. Following that, the board will decide on how much money to ask the community for in time for the Aug. 1 filing date to be on the November ballot.

A potential complicating element is that by state law, the aggregate taxing limit for cities, counties and most special districts is $5.90, with counties and the county road levy receiving a set amount of that sum. So-called junior taxing districts — such as fire, parks and recreation and cemetery — receive the remainder. If that $5.90 limit is exceeded, the law calls for prorationing — or reducing what some of the junior districts receive. At the King County Assessor’s Office, Accounting Division Director Iris Hoffner said that while she made some calculations using 2017 figures and that 2018 figures would be different, it is possible that an increase in the fire district’s levy rate to $1.50 could mean a reduction in tax revenue to the Vashon Park District. Smaller rate increases, such as $1.35 ($675 per year for a $500,000 home), would not trigger the prorationing step, she said.

Following Krimmert’s presentation, there was limited discussion about how the district got to this point. Commissioner McCullough, who has served on the board for six years and chaired it for three, noted that the gold standard for fire districts is to have 130 percent of its annual budget in reserve.

“That is the standard for planning for fire districts, but it has not been a reality here,” she said.

The current chair, Camille Staczek, noted a contributing factor.

“Part of the thing that got us into this was that we wanted to tighten our belt and not ask for increases from anybody. We did this and did that, and this is where we ended up,” she said.

McCullough said it was not like someone spent $1 million that the district did not have.

“It was not one thing,” she said. “It was an accumulation of many things that held us down.”

Stan Voynick, a VIFR volunteer who attended the meeting that night, said it sounded as though district leadership was looking at amounts of money over one- and two-year periods and not for the long-term.

“Someone needs to look at slopes over a five- to 10-year time frame,” he said. “Because that is what kills you. Where is that slope going?”

Commissioner Brigitte Schran Brown agreed, saying she had looked at the pattern with the district’s reserve and chose to run for a board seat to address the problem.

“This is a widening gap. We have got to do something about this,” she said she thought at the time.

McCullough shared a similar comment.

“We have been saying that for the last several years on the board. That gap is catching up with us and we need to fix it,” she said.

The next board meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 27, at Station 55 on Bank Road. The public is welcome.