Voters in a third of Oregon’s 36 counties will vote during the May primary on whether to raise local property taxes to fund struggling fire districts and departments.
The tax levies and bonds for firefighting and emergency services are among nearly 100 local ballot measures Oregonians in 30 counties will be asked to vote on by May 19. Others include raising local property taxes and bonding — essentially taking out a loan — to pay for schools, libraries and parks. Some voters will decide whether to annex land into their city, end mandated conversations about changing Oregon’s border with Idaho and change city charters — a sort of rulebook for how cities operate.
Fire
How to fund fire departments is by far the most common question local voters will decide across Oregon. In 12 counties, 28 fire districts are asking voters for a tax levy or bond to help pay for staff and operations, and one fire district in Sandy is asking voters about being annexed into the Clackamas Fire District.
Property taxes fund the bulk of local fire departments and fire districts, but Measures 5 and 50 that passed in the 1990s essentially limited the growth of those taxes across the state by basing property values on a rate-limited assessment rather than market worth.
Other property tax suppressants, such as urban renewal districts and enterprise zones meant to incentivize development and job growth with low to no property taxes for a number of years also siphon off dollars fire departments could use, said Brian Stewart, assistant chief of strategic services at Clackamas Fire and the legislative chair for the Oregon Fire Chiefs Association.
“We’re all across the state feeling the pressures. We’re all underfunded for what the community expectations are,” Stewart said.
Low revenues coupled with rising community needs from fire departments has led many to try and get by on volunteers and thin budgets.
“Firefighters across the state are emergency first responders to paramedics. When you think about strokes, cardiac arrests, respiratory arrest, all those things — time is against us — and so we need to have the resources available in force for structural fires, and we need to have them available in force for those really critical emergency events,” he said.
Departments also rely on state and federal grants and partnerships, but those dollars are also in higher demand as fire seasons that used to last from late July through August now stretch from May to October, he said. And if they aren’t responding to more wildfires, they are responding to bigger structural fires due to homes and buildings being made and furnished with cheap materials that burn hotter and faster than they have in previous decades, he added.
Libraries, parks and schools
Fire districts aren’t the only public service providers hamstrung by revenue losses from Measures 5 and 50. Voters in 16 counties are being asked to approve a new bond or property tax increase, or renew one, to help fund schools, parks and libraries.
Hood River’s Parks and Recreation District is asking voters to approve a bond to construct a new pool at the Hood River Aquatic Center, which has been relatively untouched since it was built in 1948, according to reporting by Uplift Local. Measure 50 froze the park district’s property tax revenue rate at 35 cents per $1,000 of assessed value for the last three decades. If the bond passes, taxpayers would chip in 64 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.
In Grant County, the creation of a new taxing district to pay for the county’s only library is on the ballot. After county budget officials determined last year that axing the library was the best option to cover a $1.5 million county budget shortfall, residents created the Save Our Library Committee to come up with solutions. Every town and city in the county has since passed a resolution in favor of the Grant County Library District, and the committee was able to secure enough signatures to get the question of taxing 50 cents on every $1,000 of assessed property value on primary ballots to pay for the library.
City charters
In 10 cities and one county, more than a dozen measures would change or modernize local charters, which are a sort of local constitution laying out local governance rules.
In Eugene, voters will decide whether to change their city charter to end the requirement that city department heads live within city limits and will decide whether to remove gender-specific pronouns from the charter when referring to individuals, instead using job titles or gender-neutral language.
Four separate ballot measures would ask voters in Corvallis whether to change the city charter to align more with one used by the League of Oregon Cities, a non-profit local governance association. Voters in Warrenton will take a similar vote on aligning with the League’s charter.
Annexation
Voters in Benton County will review the most ballot measures of any county in Oregon, and those in Philomath will have the greatest number of hyperlocal measures to decide. There are seven separate proposals to annex “island territories” that are not technically part of Philomath but are surrounded by enough of the city that residents and businesses on the islands receive city services without paying into the tax base that covers the cost of those services.
Philomath Mayor Christopher McMorran said voters he hears from are generally supportive of the annexations, but he also noticed some confusion. He notes that these are not being annexed for development, but rather to ensure residents and businesses benefiting from city services, who might be bordered on three sides by the city, are also paying into the system supporting those services.
In all, he estimates it would affect less than 20 landowners.
“As we looked at shoring up our budget, it felt like a fair ask to make sure everyone adequately shares in the costs,” he said.
Across the state in Wallowa County, voters will decide whether to end mandatory annual conversations about how to leave Oregon. Wallowa County in 2023 became one of more than a dozen eastern counties that expressed support for leaving Oregon to become part of Idaho, and the voter-approved ballot measure a group of residents now want to repeal required county commissioners to meet twice a year to discuss joining Idaho.
The Wallowa County group opposed to the mandatory meetings and the Greater Idaho Movement is asking voters to bring them to a close.
Matt McCaw, executive director of Greater Idaho Movement who led the 2023 measure said even if the meetings go away, “the issue is not going to go away.”
“The people of Eastern Oregon feel detached from Western Oregon and they would prefer the state level governance of Idaho over Oregon,” he said. “Do we think it would be valuable for the people of Wallowa County to continue to have these meetings? Absolutely. But we’re not going to mount a campaign to try to force these meetings to continue.”
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