Budget Shortfall Prompts Staffing Reduction in Fire District 34

A $1 million budget shortfall has prompted King County Fire District 34, unincorporated Redmond's fire district, to reduce staffing at its Union Hill fire station effective Jan. 1.

The staffing change will reduce the district's total number of firefighters by three and cut the number of fire and rescue personnel at Station 13 from three to two in any given 24-hour period, said Peter Lucarelli, chair of District 34's board of commissioners and a retired Bellevue fire chief.

All of the positions will be eliminated through attrition, he said.

The station, located at 8701 208th Ave. N.E., will also no longer be operating a fire truck but will be able to provide emergency medical care and assist other stations in firefighting efforts, Lucarelli said. The truck will remain on site but the station will not have enough personnel to operate it, he said.

“It’s not something anyone wanted to do, but I think it’s the best approach at this time,” Lucarelli said. “We feel this is the best of all of our options.”

Fire District 34 operates under a $6.1-million contract with the city of Redmond to provide service for unincorporated neighborhoods that stretch from the city of Sammamish to the south, the Snoqualmie Valley to the east, and around 132nd Street to the north.

Lucarelli said the budget shortfall was caused by two factors: lower property assessments and the city of Kirkland's of areas that were formerly located within District 34's boundaries.

Declining property values, which determine the amount of revenue the district collects in taxes, are an ongoing concern for District 34, Lucarelli said, especially because the district does not benefit from sales tax or any other steady revenue source.

When asked whether Station 13 could close if property values did not pick up, Lucarelli did not rule out the possibility.

“There’s a possibility that any of the stations could be closed if things got bad enough,” he said. “We’re kind of hunkering down and just keeping what we have now and hoping it doesn’t get worse ... but it’s anybody’s guess.”

For the time being, however, Lucarelli said he is confident the upcoming staffing reduction will have little to no impact on service. Approximately 75 percent of the calls the station receives are for emergency medical care, he said, and all of the station's EMT personnel and equipment will remain unchanged.

After Jan. 1, when there is a fire in the Union Hill area, Lucarelli said trucks would head to the scene from any of three other stations located on Redmond Ridge, near Ames Lake, and in southeast Redmond off of Redmond-Fall City Road.

Firefighters from Station 13 would also go to the scene, sans fire engine, to assess the situation and set up a command station, if necessary, as trucks and personnel from the other stations travel to the blaze, Lucarelli said. As always, crews battling significant fires will rely on mutual aid agreements with surrounding jurisdictions, he said. 

Station 13 also serves some portions of the city of Redmond that are located in the Avondale corridor. Deputy Chief Russ Albertson of the  said he expects any service changes in that area to be minimal, in part because the department is opening a new station on Northeast 116th Street in January.

“I don’t think it's going to make an appreciable difference," he said.

But firefighter/EMT Mark Donnell, who also serves as president of Redmond Firefighters I.A.F.F. Local 2829, said the union does have some concerns about the station's ability to provide high-quality service without access to a fire engine.

“That could be somewhat impacted by the reduction of staffing out at Station 13,” Donnell said. “Obviously that would be of concern to us.”

Even though the staffing reduction will not require layoffs, Donnell said Redmond firefighters are somewhat unsettled by the district's finanical woes, especially in light of large-scale job cuts happening in other jurisdictions.

“It just isn’t quitting, and I think we’re going to see more concern with that from everybody,” he said.