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The fire district, which provides fire and emergency medical services to western Lane County, says the funds will pay for two new full-time firefighter positions and staffing quarters at one station and will help cover increasing costs of service.
Voters in western Lane County are again being asked to approve a levy increase for Lane Fire Authority, after having voted down the increase in November.
The current five-year local option levy for Lane Fire Authority expires this year and the district is asking voters to pass a new levy, at a higher rate. District leaders say both levy proposals are designed to account for a 20% increase in calls since the 2021 levy was approved, as well as overall cost increases.
After Lane Fire Authority’s first request for a new increased levy failed in November, the fire district took an ambulance out of service and notified employees it would not approve new vacation requests for dates after June 30.
The fire district is also not filling vacant positions.
The measure on the May 19 ballot asks voters to approve a five-year local option levy that would impose a tax of 55 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value. The current levy of 35 cents per $1,000, expires in June. If passed, the new levy begins July 1.
A homeowner with an assessed property value of $250,000 would pay $137.50 per year or about $11.46 per month, about $50 more per year than the current rate.
If passed, the levy will generate $1.7 million in the first year and about $9.3 million over five years.
The November measure — which also asked voters to increase the levy to 55 cents — was defeated 53.2% to 46.7%, with 6,674 votes cast; turnout was about 34%.
What is Lane Fire Authority?
Lane Fire Authority provides fire and emergency medical services to 31,000 people covering 282 square miles in western Lane County.
The district has 15 fire stations and serves communities including Santa Clara, Elmira, Noti, Walton, Veneta and Crow.
The district’s ambulance service area is larger, at 425 square miles, providing ambulance services to Lane Fire, Lake Creek, Junction City, the majority of Harrisburg, portions of Monroe, Santa Clara and, if needed, Eugene and Springfield.
The fire authority has about 37 employees when fully staffed and three stations have 24/7 staffing, with the remaining stations supported by volunteers.
The district responds to about 20 calls daily, with medical emergencies accounting for 80% of calls.
Lane Fire Authority is separate from Lane County and is funded by property taxes, ambulance fees and grants. Its permanent tax rate is $2.04 per $1,000 of assessed home value. The local option levy is in addition to the permanent tax rate.
The district had a budget of $14 million for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.
Lane Fire Authority is governed by a 10-member elected board, which approved placing the levy on the May ballot.
Base tax rate not keeping pace
Fire Chief Dale Borland said Lane Fire Authority’s permanent tax rate is not keeping pace with the district’s cost of service. In Oregon, statewide measures established in the 1990s limit the growth of property taxes to 3% each year.
When the tax rate was set for the district by those statewide tax measures, the department was mostly volunteer‑run with only a few paid staff, he said.
“As we grew and grew and grew and got more and more calls and had to put more staffing on, (that rate) does not cover the new staffing model,” Assistant Fire Chief Rose Douglass told Lookout Eugene-Springfield.
Volunteer numbers are declining, Borland said. With more two-income households now, people have less time to volunteer.
“The funding for rural fire districts set back in the late ’80s or ’90s was not to fund career departments, and they’re becoming more and more career departments,” Douglass said.
Douglass said call volume has steadily risen as a result of population growth as well as an increased reliance on 911 care when residents can’t access primary care or specialists.
Lane Fire Authority is not the only fire district struggling to keep up with rising call volumes and costs, Borland said. The district sent out a survey to other special districts across the state and found that many others are putting levies on the May ballot.
“It’s a crisis across the state for special fire districts,” Borland said. “More and more are hurting.”
What would the levy pay for?
According to fire district officials, the levy would pay for:
- Two new firefighters at the Irving Station: District leaders said this would help prevent shift commanders from being assigned to work the engine, which limits their ability to command the scene. Having an incident commander is best practice to ensure someone sees the bigger picture and can coordinate resources, Douglass said.
- Building a modular staff building at Station 109: This building would support future staffing needs at the station on Spencer Creek Road, southwest of Eugene, reducing response times. The station does not currently have dedicated personnel, according to spokesperson Diana Holmes. Calls are handled by a volunteer along with engines from other stations, removing them from their primary coverage area.
- Increased expenses: According to Lane Fire Authority budgets, budgeted personnel costs increased 41% during the past five fiscal years. During that time, budgeted costs for materials and services increased 44%, while overtime costs increased 72%.
Planning for two outcomes
Holmes said the district is developing proposals for the next budget that account for both potential outcomes of the May election.
The district has seven vacant positions: a general service mechanic, executive secretary, training lieutenant, training and EMS captain, a firefighter/medic and two single-role medics.
Holmes said that for some operations division vacancies, employees were reassigned to maintain staffing levels for 911 response. She said the district decided to not fill vacancies “given the environment where we may not pass a levy in a few months and they would have to be laid off.”
Borland said the district will be “going on a hiring frenzy to fill positions back in again” if the levy passes.
He sent a memo to staff in February saying the district was pausing approval of any time off for dates after June 30. He told Lookout he talked with the joint labor management committee and realized the district could run into a staffing crisis if it continued to approve vacations.
Staff can submit requests. If the levy passes, time off requests will be approved in the order they were submitted consistent with current scheduling guidelines, Borland wrote in the memo. If the levy doesn’t pass, management will finalize a staffing and deployment plan and determine how many time off requests can be supported and approve requests in submission order that fall within that plan.
The district also took out of service a peak-hour ambulance that operated from the Veneta station after its paramedics left.
“It left vacancies that meant we had to shut down one of the ambulances,” Douglass said.
The district has a second peak-hour ambulance at the Prairie Road station that has a higher call volume and serves a larger population. It also has two full-time ambulances.
The firefighters union, IAFF Local 851, supports the proposed measure.
“Protecting jobs is one of our union’s top priorities,” union president Brett Deedon told Lookout. “If Measure 20-386 fails, our members and the community could face devastating consequences, including potential job losses. For this reason, our political action committee leadership, with consensus from our LFA members, has decided to support the levy’s passage.”
How to learn more
The district is holding two question-and-answer sessions at Lane Fire Authority Headquarters, 88050 Territorial Highway, Veneta:
- 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. April 30
- 10 a.m. to noon May 2
The sessions will be livestreamed on Lane Fire Authority’s Facebook and YouTube channels.
IAFF 851 is hosting a town hall on May 1 at 6 p.m. at LaVelle Wineries, 89697 Sheffler Road, Elmira.