Officials with North Whidbey Fire and Rescue are asking voters in the district to increase property taxes in order to replace aging equipment, fix up crumbling fire houses and keep up with an increasing call load.

Not everyone, however, is convinced that a tax hike is necessary.

Fire commissioners voted last month to place a 35-cent levy lid lift on the Aug. 1 primary ballot. If it passes, it will amount to an extra $70 a year for the owner of a home worth $200,000.

The total levy would be $1.11 annually for every $1,000 of assessed value.

The lid increase could add an extra $738,000 a year to the district’s budget. The annual budget totals about $2 million. In addition to taxes, the district receives money through a contract with WhidbeyHealth and other, smaller sources.

Marv Koorn, fire commissioner and former fire chief, said the district has a long list of capital purchases and improvements on the books for the next five to 10 years. Not keeping up, he said, could result in a reduction of the district’s insurance rating and higher premiums for homeowners.

Chief Mike Brown points out that the last levy increase to pass was way back in 1989. District officials asked voters for a lid lift twice in 2008, but neither passed; Koorn blames the Great Recession.

The district has been limited to a 1 percent tax increase each year while the cost of fire equipment and construction has soared, Brown said.

In addition, the number of calls for service continues to climb, increasing about 40 percent in the last five years. Brown predicts that trend will continue with the predicted population increase from additional personnel at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.

Brown said volunteers will remain the “backbone” of the fire district, but he believes more career firefighters may be necessary in the future. He’s proposed a “residence program,” for example, in which career firefighters would live at a fire station and work shifts in return for rent and training.

The district currently has about 90 volunteer firefighters — including paid on-call and water rescuers — but they all have other commitments that compete with emergency response work.

“It’s harder and harder to keep up with the training,” Brown said. “These are people who have jobs other than this and lives other than this.”

On the other hand, T.J. Lamont, a former fire commissioner, said the levy lid lift isn’t necessary, but that the fire chief needs to cut back on spending. Lamont, incumbent Larry Wall and two other candidates filed to run for position 1 on the commission.

“It appears he is going to burn through the reserves just to justify the levy,” Lamont said, referring to Brown.

Lamont said the district saved up reserves and purchased fire trucks “in cash” when he was on the commission and didn’t need a lid lift; paying in cash, he said, meant they didn’t have to pay interest.

One of the expenses that Lamont questions is the purchase of a $100,000 boat this year for the department’s marine rescue unit. He said the Island County Sheriff’s Department has the responsibility for water rescues; the sheriff should fund the program, he proposed, and the fire district can provide the personnel.

Lamont worries that Brown wants to move the department away from volunteers and toward a more-expensive career staff. He was critical of Lamont’s decision to require all firefighters to be certified as “firefighter 1.”

He said experienced firefighters without the certification should have been grandfathered in; not doing so has the effect of pushing valuable people out.

Brown, however, said he knows that the district will continue to rely on volunteers for years to come and he’s only proposed a small and gradual increase in the career staff.

As far as certification, he said the other fire departments on the island have the same requirement and just about everyone at North Whidbey has been able to obtain the certification.

“It’s a dangerous job,” he said. “You want people certified for it.”

Brown admits that the decision to buy the boat — surplus from the Coast Guard — was controversial, but he feels it’s an important service the community expects. And if the department is going to do water rescues, he said, volunteers in the marine unit should have the safest boat possible within reason.

The North Whidbey Fire and Rescue district covers about 50 square miles, from Deception Pass to Libbey Road — excluding the city of Oak Harbor. The district currently has the lowest regular levy rate in the county.

Nowadays, Brown said, it’s almost a misnomer to call his personnel “firefighters” since most of the calls for service are medical-related. Most firefighters are also emergency medical technicians.

Koorn explained that insurance companies set a 15-year lifespan on fire trucks. Having trucks older than that can negatively affect the district’s fire rating.

The district was successful in lowering its rating a couple years ago after buying a couple of used water tenders to replace two older trucks.

“Everybody in the last year and a half should have seen their insurance drop,” Koorn said.

The rating could go back up, he said, if the district doesn’t continue to replace equipment. Two engine trucks will reach their 15-year lifespan next year and a heavy rescue will hit the 15-year mark the year after that. Two more engines should be replaced in about six years.

Fire trucks don’t come cheap. Two new engines will cost about $1 million, Koorn said.

In addition, Koorn said three of the district’s seven fire stations are showing signs of wear.

The stations on Silver Lake, Zylstra and Polnell were all built many years ago by volunteers.

The plan is to replace the Zylstra station with a new station on property the district purchased on Van Dam Road. As far as the other two stations, Koorn said, officials haven’t decided whether it would be better to remodel or rebuild.

Koorn said he believes all the capital investment can be accomplished within the budget if the levy lid passes.

“At this point, we hope not to have to take out loans,” he said.