{"id":1317698,"date":"2020-01-15T14:53:17","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T21:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=992636"},"modified":"2020-01-15T14:53:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T21:53:17","slug":"last-chance-for-community-input-as-colorado-river-fire-rescue-looks-toward-possible-mill-levy-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/last-chance-for-community-input-as-colorado-river-fire-rescue-looks-toward-possible-mill-levy-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Last chance for community input as Colorado River Fire Rescue looks toward possible mill levy proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Randy Callahan, fire chief for Colorado River Fire Rescue talks with residents during last Saturday\u2019s Community Meeting at Station 61 in Silt. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram)<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

More than a dozen residents turned out last Saturday for Colorado River Fire Rescue\u2019s third community meeting, this time at Station 61 in Silt.<\/p>\n

CRFR Fire Chief Randy Callahan and his staff have spent time visiting each fire station as part of a series of meetings to inform the communities of decreasing revenues in recent years.<\/p>\n

The district is considering placing a mill levy proposal on the May ballot, which would enable the funding of vital equipment, apparatus and attracting and retaining personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many years we were able to depend on oil and gas revenues that allowed us to save a lot of money during good times, and live off reserves in bad times,\u201d Callahan said.<\/p>\n

The fire district\u2019s overall assessed valuation dropped from $1.1 billion to $674 million from 2015 to 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not getting the oil and gas money that we are used to, and that has caused a $2.6 million budget deficit,\u201d Callahan added.<\/p>\n

As the valuation drops, the incident call volume is rising with the district responding to over 3,000 calls in 2018.<\/p>\n

With a service area of 851 square miles, the district serves 25,275 residents and protects 15,339 homes, 850 multi-family dwellings and 1,665 commercial and industrial properties.<\/p>\n

Given the decreased revenues, the district is looking for ways to fund the operational side to keep a balanced budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we have done well in saving, the last three years we\u2019ve been spending out of reserves,\u201d Callahan said.<\/p>\n

With changing times and less oil and gas money coming in, that plan is not working and the district is now unable to save money during the good times, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem that we are having is money. That is a universal problem for many agencies,\u201d Callahan said.<\/p>\n

CRFR currently has six open positions that it has not filled due to not being able to offer competitive wages and budget constraints.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Residents and community members sign in for CRFR\u2019s funding proposal meeting last Saturday in Silt. The fire district which covers Rifle, Silt and New Castle is looking for the communities opinion as they look for ways to fund the district. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram)<\/strong>
CRFRFunding-rct-011620<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve prepared a budget to live off reserves for one more year, which means we have a budget that is balanced and within our means for the next year,\u201d Callahan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are not able to secure stable funding for operations next year, we will be faced with cutting personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leif Sackett, CRFR operations chief, said the district looked into wages in the area, including Parachute, Glenwood Springs, the Roaring Fork Valley and Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

They found that CRFR is 18-20 percent below overall comparatively to the others districts and departments.<\/p>\n

According to Sackett, CRFR would be looking for the addition of 6.099 mills for the funding proposal.<\/p>\n

The addition to the existing mill levy would result in an estimated tax increase of $3.63 per month, per $100,000 of a home\u2019s actual value.<\/p>\n

Chief Callahan said that after one last meeting at Station 41 Thursday, all the information from meetings and the survey the district sent to the community will be presented to the task force during a Jan. 30 meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to provide you with accurate information, so you can make a decision on where to go,\u201d Callahan said at last Saturday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

kmills@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Randy Callahan, fire chief for Colorado River Fire Rescue talks with residents during last Saturday\u2019s Community Meeting at Station 61 in Silt. (Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram) More than a dozen residents turned out last Saturday for Colorado River Fire Rescue\u2019s third community meeting, this time at Station 61 in Silt. CRFR Fire Chief Randy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 05:27:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}