{"id":98127,"date":"2018-08-26T19:43:37","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T01:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-mesa-fire-protection-district-asks-for-property-tax-increase\/"},"modified":"2018-08-26T19:43:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T01:43:37","slug":"fort-lewis-mesa-fire-protection-district-asks-for-property-tax-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-mesa-fire-protection-district-asks-for-property-tax-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis Mesa Fire Protection District asks for property tax increase"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis Mesa Fire Protection District is filing paperwork to bring two questions to voters on November\u2019s ballot.<\/span>Courtesy of Fort Lewis Mesa Fire Protection District<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Fort Lewis Mesa Fire Protection District has filed paperwork for two ballot measures in November.<\/p>\n

The first measure is a mill levy increase, and the second measure is a proposal to \u201cde-Gallagherize,\u201d or remove, the district from the reins of the Gallagher Amendment of the Colorado Constitution.<\/p>\n

The amendment was enacted in 1982 in an effort to maintain a constant ratio between property tax from residential property and commercial property. Each year, the state adjusts property tax rates in order to maintain a proper balance, but this negatively affects rural communities, said Fire Chief John Lee.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn rural areas, where we don\u2019t have any or very little commercial, there isn\u2019t a balance,\u201d Lee said. \u201cThe de-Gallagherization is to try to limit the effect that metropolitan counties don\u2019t experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the Gallagher Amendment, the department lost about $30,000 last year and is expecting to lose about $40,000 this year, he said. The department doesn\u2019t wish to make a profit, but instead keep the revenue for the department.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a district like ours, it becomes imperative to take it to the voters directly and say, \u2018Can we just keep the money that we get now?\u2019\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to have to eliminate services or close a fire station or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the lost money, the department has had to pull from its reserve funds, which can\u2019t be sustained much longer. The mill levy increase is to help the department make up for the losses acquired over the years because of the Gallagher Amendment, Lee said.<\/p>\n

The department is requesting an increase of 2.5 mills, which translates to an $18 increase per $100,000 on the home, Lee said. The average home in the district is worth $300,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that a very moderate mill levy increase will allow us not to use our reserves and be in a very good place going forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The department covers the largest land acreage in La Plata County at 357 square miles and responded to 227 calls in 2017. The department has two full-time members, two part-time members and 25 volunteers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a double-edged sword,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt costs money to do that, but we\u2019ve got more people than we\u2019ve ever had before.\u201d<\/p>\n

asemadeni@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

District voters will vote on two measures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[2037,13,4259],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-fort-lewis-mesa-fire-protection-district","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-newsletter-sign-up"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98127","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=98127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98127"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}