In the next few weeks, Eugene City Council could consider an alternative to the fire fee in hopes of avoiding a budget crisis and a divisive election.
Eugene’s fire fee, a charge to residents and businesses based on the square footage of structures, was first approved by the city council in February. It would bring in an estimated $10 million in hopes of hiring another squad of firefighters and shrinking a budget gap.
In March, a group backed by the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, gathered more than 8,000 signatures to place it on the ballot.
The city can’t collect the fire fee until voters decide the referendum's fate. That could either come during a special election in August, or the regular November election.
If Eugene is the only local government with a ballot issue during the November election, the city would be on the hook for at least $250,000 in election costs, according to city staff. Currently, there are no other items on the ballot for November, although the deadline to place items on the ballot isn't until late summer.
During Monday’s meeting, some council members, including Lyndsie Leech, discussed not going to voters at all.
“We have an opportunity, if it's not a fire fee, to do something else,” she said.
Leech, as well as councilors Jennifer Yeh, Matt Keating and Greg Evans, said they were potentially open to considering a version of a fee that was collected—or potentially calculated—differently, smaller, and with a sunset or expiration the city council could renew every four, or six years.
“It gives us enough time to really talk about our budget, our long-term plans, while not being so quick that we can’t have these discussions in the community that we obviously need to be having,” Yeh said.
If the city council repeals the fire fee and passes a scaled down alternative to prop up next year’s budget, it could avoid $8 million in cuts to visible, highly used city services and serious layoffs. Repealing the fee would mean a referendum election would not occur.
Several council members, including Mike Clark and Eliza Kashinsky, pushed back against an alternative proposal, saying it could lead to unintended consequences.
Clark said it would betray the will of the voters, and put the council at risk of losing the community’s trust.
“We’re talking about short-circuiting their ability to have their say, and that makes me extremely uncomfortable,” Clark said. “Especially when it seems like for granted that we’re going to put some other type of fee in place.”
Kashinsky said the original fire fee was designed to be one piece of a long-term solution and diluting it could put the city on a path to another budget crisis in just a few years.
“This fee was always intended to be ongoing funding,” she said. “There are certain things that it is foolish for us to do with one time, or sunsetting money, such as set up a new fire squad.”
The City Council asked the city manager to bring back more information, and some possible alternatives next week.
The city would need to put together a solid draft ordinance in the next month to be able to hold public hearings and adopt the alternative alongside the budget in June.
