Election Results: Franklin Co. voters decide on 911 emergency towers, fire district levy
Franklin County leaders might be in for a rude awakening as voters appear to be soundly rejecting requests for ways to fund critical 911 infrastructure and rural fire protection.
Voters were asked to approve a 0.02 cents, or 2 cents on a $10 purchase, sales tax to help fund the replacement of failing 911 communications tower equipment across the county, and bring their system onto a modern bandwidth.
The tax would be reduced to 0.01 cents after three years, in order to help the bigger initial replacement costs.
It would also pay for radio upgrades for the fire districts, a cost many can't afford because of recent levy lid lift failures.
Early voting returns showed the proposition failing with 11,096 votes opposed, or 51%.
In northern Franklin County, voters were being asked for a levy lid lift for Fire Protection District 1. It's their first lid lift request since the state changed the funding formula nearly 20 years ago.
Fire Protection District 1 covers the north-central portion of the county around Mesa and Connell. It's also one of the areas with the worst emergency communications issues, according to proponents of the sales tax.
If the levy and the sales tax both fail, they'll be in a particularly rough spot when it comes to upgrading radios.
Initial voting returns show the levy lid lift request failing with 284 votes opposed, or 57%.
Franklin County's 911 towers are using outdated VHF transmitters. Parts are failing at a rate of about four a week. Those parts are no longer made and the county is now unable to easily find replacements online.
That could lead to a situation in rural Franklin County where a tower component fails and technicians can't get it back to working for days.
Already rural fire districts say they struggle to communicate over garbled radios. A failure can result in either diminished service or none at all.
The county reported one major failure recently, but technicians were able to get it back up and running. There was also a run of interference in the Basin City area due to outside radios, according to a recent report.
The tax on sales in Franklin County would raise an estimated $21 million over three years and then drop to $3.5 million a year based on current sales predictions.
The tax is separate from the E-911 tax on phone bills, which pays for dispatch related services. The 911 communications sales tax can only be used for infrastructure and radios.
Earlier this year law enforcement and fire chiefs from across the Tri-Cities got together to renew a push for a systemwide replacement, that could cost of up to $30 million total across two projects. That's split between Benton and Franklin counties and Pasco, Richland and Kennewick.
That total will shift as the agencies know the number of radios needed to be replaced and if they qualify for any Washington state and federal grants.
The bulk of the cost though comes from Franklin County, because Benton County already has an 800 MHZ system in place, which is used by all of the police agencies.
It's a plan that's been on their radar for years, but was pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Already grant funding has eliminated a significant chunk of the costs for the first portion of the project, knocking millions off the project price tag.
Levy lid lift
Fire Protection District 1 is asking taxpayers to reset their property tax levy to 95 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. Due to years of levy collection compression, their rate is currently hovering around 38 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.
Fire districts have to ask for these lid lifts because their budget can only be increased by 1% of the total budget from the prior year, which quickly puts them behind as the county grows and assessed values increase.
For many fire districts, that not enough to cover fuel cost increases.
The district said that already they have been using savings for equipment and firetruck replacements, and they are now at a critical point where those funds are nearly gone, according to information from their Voters' Guide submission.
