Tacoma’s 2021-22 budget to cut fire engine service after split City Council vote

TACOMA, Wash. — Tacoma City Council voted to approve the 2021-2020 biennial budget on Tuesday that will take one Tacoma Fire Department engine out of commission starting in April 2021.

The action follows a proposal to City Council earlier this month that outlined reducing the Tacoma Fire Department’s fleet by three engines. The proposal led Tacoma firefighters to speak out in a letter to the public about concerns about what it would mean for the city’s service levels.

The overall budget was approved 6-2, with Council members Robert Thoms and Conor McCarthy dissenting. Mayor Victoria Woodards, Deputy Mayor Keith Blocker, and Council members Kristina Walker, John Hines, Chris Beale and Catherine Ushka approved the budget. Council member Lillian Hunter was excused absent.

The Tacoma Fire Department budget approved Tuesday, which cuts one engine instead of three, avoids millions in cuts to other departments and prevents firefighter layoffs, was a good compromise, said Council members who supported the move.

Mayor Victoria Woodards said Tuesday the decision was a difficult one and that she is dedicated to finding additional funding in the coming months to see if the city can prevent the engine from being decommissioned in April.

“We will shake every tree, overturn every rock, to find that funding,” Woodards said.

Matt Frank, treasurer-secretary for the Tacoma firefighters union, said during public comment at the meeting that reducing fire engine service could increase response times and add work for firefighters.

“We are imploring you to keep all of our engine companies,” Frank said.

Frank told The News Tribune in a text on Wednesday: “We are extremely disappointed with the vote of the City Council last night which passed a budget that includes the closure of an engine company. We believe that the closure of an engine will have a negative effect on the safety of the citizens of Tacoma.”

TFD faced millions in cuts and dozens of layoffs due to a budget deficit stemming from COVID-19 impacts, TFD Chief Tory Green said in a city council meeting in October.

The department proposed launching its own basic life support service, which is currently contracted out to a separate company, American Medical Response (AMR) Ambulance Service. City Council passed a three-year, $1.3 million contract agreement with AMR in Oct. 2017, with options for two additional one-year extensions.

Making BLS transports an invernal service opens a new funding stream for TFD of around $25 million in the next biennium and prevent layoffs. The proposal means moving some firefighters from engines to BLS transports.

The budget approved Tuesday staggers the implementation of BLS transports. Starting April, the department will take one fire engine out of commission and start two units of BLS transports. In 2021, the department will add 40 firefighter positions, an increase from 296 to 336, to staff BLS transports.

The one engine will remain offline through 2022.

Keeping two other fire engines in service will cost the city $4 million in the general fund. Rather than using city reserves, that gap will be offset by future projected revenues which are forecast to be better than expected by year’s end, said city budget director Katie Johnson.

Because the funds are coming from a one-time source, a $4 million deficit will be added to the 2023-24 biennial budget. The total estimated deficit for the 2023-24 budget is at $24 million.

McCarthy and Thoms voted against the $3.7 billion overall city budget.

“We’re in a pandemic, and I don’t think it’s responsible to cut emergency services,” McCarthy said Tuesday. “And I think there’s a fiscally responsible way to cut other nonessential services and not cut the lifeline to so many people in our community.”

McCarthy brought forward an amendment that would keep all fire engines online, costing the city’s general fund $9 million. The city would offset the deficit through $5 million in one-time year-end revenues that are better than anticipated and $4 million in cuts elsewhere in the city, including deferring funding from the city’s Streets Initiative by $500,000, reducing funding for emergency IT issues by $227,738, cuts to police fleet replacements by $250,000, reduction in contracts for cultural services and external funding for grassroots community-based arts projects by $100,000, and more.

Thoms said the city spent years after the economic recession of 2008 trying to restore fire department service levels.

“I am supportive of this amendment under the understanding that it keeps my commitment to the citizens that I said I would fight for essential services and prioritizing emergency services over other functions of the city,” Thoms said Tuesday.

The amendment was supported by McCarthy, Thoms and Council member John Hines, but failed.

Cox Media Group