Vote no on 4A

I asked about this issue. This was the answer I received: the district did not exceed appropriations, it was an error on the auditors part that has since been corrected and is being sent to the state and prepared for publication on the website. In addition to that, the claim that not filing an amended audit is against state law is incorrect as well, which the Chief spoke about during the Community Meeting last week.
[youtube:cb6kikws][/youtube:cb6kikws]

Another place to check to which district you pay is to look at your county property tax statement - all taxes should be broken down on there.

I'll try to answer your other questions frogger.

Financial documents are already available on the website, the links to which have been posted in this thread and are on http://elkcreekfire.org/ECFD/Welcome.html . If there are any additional ones that you wish (such as previous years audited budgets), you just have to call the station and request them to be emailed to you.

No one will be campaigning for the mill levy during the Open House. However, questions about the mill levy, the budgets, the facilities, the training, the equipment, etc are more than welcome. I'd guess that most of the firefighters won't be able to answer specific questions about the budgets/mill levy so it would probably be most efficient if you emailed those directly to Chief McLaughlin or called him. There's also an ECFPD Board of Directors meeting this coming Thursday at Fire Station 1 at 6pm during which you can ask.

It has not been our goal, the Friends of Elk Creek Fire group, nor intention, to pull on any "heart-strings" - we've just presented the facts and consequences of what is likely happen should the measure not be passed.

The Chief himself has been very upfront about the fact that he cannot, and would not, campaign for or against this issue - his job is to tell the facts which is what he has done at all of his presentations. The FOECF are under no such restrictions, but we believe that the facts should support themselves and this community's decision to support the fire department. It's the residents' choice as to what level of service they wish to maintain, it's just our job to inform everyone as to what levels they will have if the mill is passed vs. if it isn't.

KincaidSprings, that Donate button is part of the nic's standard sig line, not something that was thrown in your face. It's been there ever since they setup the PayPal donation option. If everyone's willing to donate the $1M they need for the 3 trucks alone, they sure wouldn't need a mill levy!

Go Union, I don't know the exact statute, I've asked for clarification on that and will get back to you as soon as I hear.

The projected revenue from this mill levy is just over $482,000/year. The Chief presented a rough budget for how that money would be spent each year during the Community Meeting presentation, and he stressed that this is still preliminary as he hasn't yet presented the 2013 budget to the BOD (expected at Thursdays meeting), and the price of the trucks changes the longer they wait. They plan on spending at least $233,000 of the $482,000/year on the lease purchases if I remember the presentation correctly (sorry, it's getting late and I'm operating on about 5 hours sleep over the last 2 days). I stated $1M as a rough estimate assuming they purchase at least 3 vehicles (the one the Chief has shown in his presentations is currently costing $390,000 each) to replace the 3 that are 24, 25, and 25 years old, respectively. I'm not sure how many vehicles they plan to purchase, I look forward to hearing more details on that on Thursday.

I'm going to be chaperoning my daughter's School Field Trip tomorrow so if I don't get back to you right away, that's why. Thanks for the questions, I appreciate them.