{"id":30729,"date":"2023-11-11T02:08:14","date_gmt":"2023-11-11T02:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-fire-protection-district-looking-at-other-alternatives-after-ballot-measure-fails\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T07:24:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:24:30","slug":"cortez-fire-protection-district-looking-at-other-alternatives-after-ballot-measure-fails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-fire-protection-district-looking-at-other-alternatives-after-ballot-measure-fails\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Fire Protection District looking at \u2018other alternatives\u2019 after ballot measure fails"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"While
While no decisions have been made, the CFPD could consider another ballot measure in the future.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

After the defeat of Ballot Measure 6A on Tuesday, the Cortez Fire Protection District is reevaluating its budgets to try to prevent any disruption to the many services it provides outside of responding to emergencies, according to the department\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n

While the nearby towns of Rico and Dolores both overwhelmingly approved measures to buoy their local fire departments, Montezuma County voters rejected a measure<\/a> that would have increased property tax to fund a $1 million budget hike to the fire district\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

While Fire Chief Roy Wilkinson was disappointed that the measure failed, he is working with the board of directors to figure out other ways to generate revenue. That could include another ballot measure in the future, though Wilkinson stressed no decisions have been made.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur community is growing. And with that growth, we want to make sure that we grow along with them. It\u2019s going to be difficult, since we were not able to pass a levy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are looking at other alternatives to be able to continue to provide the services that we have in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tightening could impact the extent to which the department can donate services and money, according to Wilkinson, as well as other activities the CFPD administers. So while CPR classes may not be cut off entirely, the department may have to \u201cpull back a little bit,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to sit down, take a look at our finances and see what we can do to make ends meet,\u201d Wilkinson said. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna have to tighten our belts.<\/p>\n

The CFPD had sought the new money to help with several aspects of operations, including offsetting a salary hike for employees that Wilkinson said was necessary to keep the department competitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe immediately saw an increase in applications and an interest in applying to the fire department,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The increased funding also would have gone to repair or replace emergency response equipment. Hiking the CFPD\u2019s budget to help cover those improvements isn\u2019t as easy as just reallocating resources from elsewhere. Unlike the Cortez Police Department, the CFPD is not part of the city budget, according to Wilkinson. Instead, all of its funding comes from the initial levy that passed a decade ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will always be there for the community, that\u2019s one thing that we will make sure that we do,\u201d said Wilkinson. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of what we\u2019re going to need to do internally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roy Wilkinson is working with the department\u2019s board to determine next steps. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81178,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30729\/revisions\/81178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30729"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}