This $275,000 tax increase is FOREVER. We have no process by which to petition to remove or reduce it. The revenue amount will also increase forever. Read it carefully. It is very open-ended and vague. Vote No on 5B.REBUTAL – Their may not be a way to reduce this tax, but believe it or not you do have a say in how and when this money should be spent. All board meetings are open to the public, the public is encouraged to attend and voice their opinions. Revenues increase but so does the cost of living; currently our firefighters make $7.62/hr to start this is the lowest pay for firefighters in El Paso County. With this level of pay, it’s harder and harder every year to retain employees especially when city fire departments are constantly hiring to keep up with there own growth. We end up training people so that they can get hired onto other departments. $7.62/hr translates to less than $25,000 annually. Can you imagine trying to raise your family making less than 5,000/year?This increase in cost of living not only affects individuals, it also affects business as well, the fire department is a business, and a business that depends on property tax based revenue. Receiving less than $100 average per year per house the fire department has to budget to stay within its property tax based revenue.We have approx 8,900 homes in our district, we cover 133 square miles. That gives us annual revenue of approximately $800,000. If we wanted to put money aside, we would have to put over half of our annual budget aside for over 20 years in order to have the amount needed today to build what we need now. Falcon Fire Protection District has been an entity since 1981, as little as 10 years ago we never expected to grow to such a largely populated district. That’s why we are asking for this tax increase now, to build for the future. We now know what to expect for the future and with this money we will be able to provide for future growth.Neighboring Peyton fire district taxes about 2 mills. Falcon wants 7.5 mills. Do we need a 275 percent increase from the property tax rate of a similar district?REBUTAL – Has the person who wrote this done any research on Peyton fire district? If you pick up the September issue of the paper, the Ranchland News, you’ll be able to find an article about the rapidly deteriorating protection that the Peyton Fire Protection District has to offer its community. They currently have a total of seven volunteers and a board that seems to have the desire to run the fire protection into dissolution. Peyton’s fire district is far from similar to Falcon Fire Protection District. I ask you to contact a member of their district, 1) ask them how their district is doing, 2) ask them how many times Calhan and Falcon Fire Protection District have been asked to assist them on their emergency calls. 3) Go by their fire station and check out their equipment then ask yourself is this how I want my fire department? 4) Is this the level of service I expect from my department? 5) Is it safe to have untrained firefighters running poor equipment to my emergency? I hope your answer is NO to all of those questions and YES to the bond and Mill levy issue for Falcon Fire Protection District.This 31 percent instant increase in your property tax bill is excessive. All governments need to live on a budget, not a blank check.REBUTAL – This is far from a blank check, every dollar will be accounted for. A list of everything that is being funded from this tax increase is available to all citizens of Falcon. We have to file a detailed budget to the state of Colorado that lists where every dollar will be appropriated. This is a budget and as any community gets bigger so does its budget. Our budget at this time is the lowest of any similar fire district in El Paso County such as Security, Fountain, Donald Wescott, Tri-lakes and Woodmoor/Monument. The highest mill of all these districts is greater than 10; the average is 8-9 mills. Ours is currently 5.71 mills.We should be able to contract for the level of service we want. Taxing vacant land that has little risk is unfair. Taxing land and businesses at 3.6 times the rate that homes are taxed is also not right. It doesn’t cost 3.6 times as much to put out a grass fire or a store fire. Don’t vote to compound the injustice of the current property tax system.REBUTAL – Falcon Fire Protection District provides much more than fire protection, the majority of our calls are medical in nature. Medicals happen wherever people are. Our job is to provide the best level of service we can, no matter who calls and what the emergency is. Homes do not bring in income other than that of the occupants, businesses do. We do not receive revenue from sales tax, even if we did we as a fire district would not be able to survive from sales tax. There is simply not enough businesses to generate the revenue needed. Most businesses understand that their property tax is significantly higher than what a homeowner would pay when they move out here. Please do the math. 3.6 X $46.20 per $100,000 taxable value per year. With the average businesses taxable value at approx $300,000 this still equals less than $40/month. The money we save these businesses in insurance per year by improving our ISO rating will bring that number down even further. Is your business worth this cost?The District should bill fire insurance companies for fire suppression. Little taxpayers should not have to raise taxes to subsidize big insurance companies. That’s not right.Most calls for service are not for fire suppression. Most are traffic accidents and other responses. Auto and Health insurance companies should pay for accident responses. The association of fire districts should ask the legislature to authorize this reform. Raising taxes will further hurt our falling economy. Is this form of tax fair? Property taxes hurt people on fixed incomes, particularly senior citizens. Colorado has the 6th highest local taxes and 2nd highest local sales taxes. Isn’t that enough?REBUTAL – According to the Colorado Revise Statutes it is illegal for fire departments to bill the insurance companies for fire suppression. Billing insurance companies for other emergencies may sound like a good answer. But in reality its not, who do you think is going to pay in the long run with higher premiums, isn’t there already concern about the ever increasing insurance rates, there is already a staggering number of people with little or no health insurance coverage. Won’t that just make it more difficult for citizens with fixed incomes to afford adequate insurance? Did you know that American Medical Response (El Paso’s ambulance service) on average collects 47 percent of what they bill for, and all of our services are done at no additional cost?By building and staffing more fire stations, the insurance standard used, called an Insurance Service Organization rating, will decrease. Currently we have an ISO rating that ranges from a 6-9, the rating is based on the fire protection you have available. One is the best 10 is the worst. By building new fire stations, many of the citizens of Falcon Fire Protection District will receive a lower ISO rating therefore reducing their insurance rates not to mention response times will lessen. Did you know that a house with fire confined to one room will need only seven minutes to flashover and fully engulf the entire interior of the house in flames and that permanent brain damage as a result of a person being unconscious and not breathing will set in less than 10 minutes. Every second counts and fire stations in closer proximity to your house can and will make the difference between life and death, rebuild or replace. The cost of this tax increase will lower their homeowner’s insurance rates greater than the increase in the bond and mill levy issue. The bond and mil levy are win-win issues, please vote YES on 5B and 5C.
