Unions, tight budget the focus of CKFR debate

BREMERTON – Central Kitsap Fire and Rescue commission candidates Ralph Rogers and Nate Andrews faced off in a collegial debate at the Norm Dicks Government Center this week.

Rogers, the incumbent, cited his 37 years of experience with the district and 19 years worth of experience as a commissioner as a reason why he should retain his seat.

Andrews, the challenger and a teacher at Olympic High School, said he could bring a needed different viewpoint and more diversity of thought to the fire board.

The League of Women Voters of Kitsap sponsored the debate, which will be broadcast on Bremerton Kitsap Access Television. Several questions were posed to the candidates.

• What unique qualifications do you bring to the job?

Andrews cited his familiarity with working with different labor groups and familiarity with labor negotiation and bargaining. He noted that one needn’t be a firefighter to serve on a fire commission.

Rogers said he’s watched as Tracyton, Illahee, Silverdale and other fire district merged over the years. He has a long history with Kitsap fire departments and was on the committee that hired the first fire chief for CKFR. He said he’s either worked with or been the boss of eight different fire chiefs.

“I have seen a lot of commissioners come and go,” he said. He said CKFR has struggled to weather Initiative 747, the Great Recession and rising insurance rates.

“We’ve had to really do some cuts and some tight figuring … since 2008 we’ve lost $2.3 million in revenue (due to the recession). We fought through that and we’re on the upward swing again,” Rogers said.

• What have you done to prepare for the work?

Rogers said he’s worked with legislators to get bills passed, and has also dealt with the firefighter union.

“We’ve dealt with the union. We’ve had a lot of problems in that respect but we work through it,” Rogers said. He said being a commissioner meant that he was “doing my homework all the time. I never stop.”

Andrews said CKFR’s 4 p.m. meeting times made it difficult for the public to attend meetings. He cited his connections to the community as a strength.

• What are your top three goals?

Andrews said his goal was to serve communities more equitably with a better distribution of firefighting resources.

Rogers said fire stations used to be located where community put them, but added “they were not in the right locations. As we’ve grown bigger and smarter we’ve closed down the Brownsville station, we’ve closed down the Tracyton station” because other stations could respond faster. Land has been purchased in the Seabeck area for future growth. The Chico station is difficult because “it started costing us over $1 million in overtime” and firefighters had to be pulled back to other stations.

CKFR has been busy, he said.

“We responded to 7,280 calls in 2014, which was an increase of 10.8 percent, and now we’ve got Harrison coming in with the big hospital and we’ve go The Trails (mall) opening which is going to add a lot more calls to CKFR,” Rogers said.

• What is the most pressing issue in the next five years?

“Money,” Rogers said, and a lack of it. “We have two propositions on the ballot right now … one is a maintenance-and-operations levy that hopefully we could hire a couple more firefighters and an equipment levy, which would allow us to upgrade our equipment.”

Rogers said some fire engines were past their 25-year duty cycle and that new breathing apparatus were needed.

The preliminary budget showed CKFR was going to have to come up with another $1 million to make ends meet. “If these two propositions don’t pass we’re going to have to make some really tough decisions in the future,” Rogers said.

Andrews said the fire district would have to make hard decisions and said CKFR could have used its reserve funds to make ends meet.

• How can attendance at commissioner meetings be improved?

Andrews said the 4 p.m. meeting time was a poor time to meet because few residents could attend at that time. He said commissioners should meet with regular people and not just reach out to groups such as the Rotary or chamber of commerce.

Rogers said commission meetings used to be held at 7:30 p.m., but few residents would attend.

“We would get nobody from the public to show up at our meetings,” Rogers said.

To make the 7:30 p.m. time work, staff had to be sent home after work, then recalled later for the meeting.

“We were having to pay these people overtime to come back to our meetings,” he said. Thus, the meeting time was changed to 4 p.m.

The 4 p.m. time “wasn’t to cut out the public … it only made sense to save money by lowering the time to 4 p.m. so our employees could go to the meetings and then get off at the normal time and go home,” Rogers said.

• Do you support the $13.9 million bond/levy?

Rogers said he fully supported the bond and levy proposals. He said rising cost of insurance and supplies and the great recession put a huge dent into CKFR’s budget.

“With the property tax busting like it did … we dropped $2.2 million the last four years. We cannot maintain a fire department on that. We just cannot do it. If we want to continue with our present service, our present way we do business, we have to have these two levies. If we don’t pass them we will start to have making cuts and they’re going to be severe cuts. We’ve got to cut $1.2 million right now out of the budget. And if these do not pass next year is going to be a nightmare.”

Andrews said he also supported the bond and levy.

“We’ve lived in a world where it’s not safe sometimes and we get a little bit worried … people are a little bit scared to say ‘no’ and they want to err on the side of making sure their families are safe … I would definitely be the person that errs on that. I think that’s important. I would rather do that than not know what’s going to happen and worry. But again, I think there are ways we can be more efficient.”

Andrews questioned whether old fire vehicles needed to truly be replaced.

• If the bond/levy fails, what will be cut?

“I don’t think it’s going to fail,” Andrews said. “I really do believe that the folks in this community want to make sure that our kids are safe and that our elderly are safe and that just in general we’re safe.”

But, he added, “in any private business or private household, you’ve got to look at ways to be more efficient … if you look in your checkbook and you kind of look into your bank account statement, you’ll find there are a lot of things you can cut out.”

Andrews said more community oversight of the fire district was needed.

Rogers said CKFR has already done a lot of cutting over the last four years.

“To be honest with you I don’t know what we would cut.” Rogers said that reserve funds were needed because no tax funds would come in from Jan. 1 through April 15.

“We used to put a million a year in reserves before Eyman hit us with our one percent, and that’s how we bought things. We’ve had to stop that completely,” Rogers said.

• Can the Kitsap fire districts be merged?

Rogers said the county has already merged from 28 fire districts to the five districts today.

“We have tried to merge South Kitsap, Bremerton and Central Kitsap … we were going pretty well until the unions put a stop to it. We tried to merge with Bremerton and, again, it was the union that put a stop to it.”

Rogers thought that in the next 10 years Kitsap County would have one fire district. One of the challenges is merging the union contracts, which could cost $1 million more “because they take the best from all the contracts … So that killed that merger right there,” Rogers said.

Andrews said the merger proposition deserved consideration if it was best for the community and taxpayers.

• How can commissioner-employee relations be improved?

Rogers said relations were good in the past, but became more problematic when the district and the unions both grew.

“The union started taking in-arounds around the fire chief,” Rogers said. He said the job of a fire commissioner was to set the budget and hire the fire chief.

“And then it’s the job of the chief to hire the rest of the employees and to maintain those employees. And we were having the union going in-around the fire chief coming directly the commissioners. We had commissioners at that time that were listening to the union and then coming back at the chief. And as a board we decided that if the chief was going to run the fire department the chief needed to run the fire department. I still socialize with the firefighters … but I will not allow the union to come to me with problems and try to back-door the chief.”

“Thats why I think the union went to Nate and asked him to run against me,” Rogers said.

Andrews took offense to that claim.

“I actually made the decision to run prior to any communication with the firefighters association or union,” Andrews said.

Andrews said that prior to Initiative 747, fire districts were “fat and happy” and purchased expensive equipment easily because there was not enough oversight.

Rogers disagreed. “I don’t think we ever lived fat and happy,” he said, but said they were simply able to save money.

“So when it came time to buy a fire truck we didn’t have to go out to the public and beg money,” Rogers said.