After months of internal meetings, the Keizer Fire District is close to finishing a new plan to meet the needs of the community and fire district staff. 

Since February, fire district leaders have worked towards a new 10-year strategic plan, replacing an outdated one developed over a decade ago. Chief Ryan Russell said the goal of the document is to provide the district a “roadmap” to serving the community in the coming years. 

The plan will detail “what we’re going to do, what we plan to accomplish, and how we’re going to achieve that,” Russell said.

The process began with a meeting of district officials and community leaders in February to define broad goals, and then involved months of internal meetings among all levels of district staff to refine the goals, and create specific objectives.

The meetings resulted in a draft detailing five primary strategic goals. The draft was first considered by the fire district’s board in May, and Russell said he expects the plan to be adopted by the board in June or July.

Board members gave positive feedback after the May meeting, Russell said. 

The primary goals include delivering effective and efficient services to the community, effective fiscal and resource management, maintaining relationships with the community and district staff, fostering community risk reduction and being responsive to the needs of fire district staff. 

A page of the document is dedicated to each goal, listing objectives toward that goal, the timeline for that objective and the tasks required to complete that objective. 

Russell said one focus is community engagement and outreach. This involves working to provide safety education in schools, local retirement homes and other places considered higher risk.

Russell said locations considered high risk are those where generating higher call volumes for service.

The aim is to educate citizens to prevent emergencies, Russell said. In a senior facility, that can involve ways to prevent falls and defining what is an emergency.

One of the specific fire district needs considered for the document was inadequate station space for staff, fire trucks and ambulances. He said the fire station on Northeast Chemawa Road, was designed with room for 10 employees but the district staffs up to 16 people a night. The district also pays for two storage units for trucks. 

To meet that need, Russell said the district is working to grow relationships with neighboring fire agencies and share space with them. The district is seeking state funding for a new shared fire station. 

Another fire district need is addressing long-term funding. The district is funded through property taxes and ambulance revenue. Oregon’s tax structure limits growth in property tax revenue to 3% per year, which Russell noted does not cover increasing operating costs. 

Russell said a group of fire chiefs and industry professionals across the state aim to advocate for changing the tax structure to the state Legislature, but he anticipates a “permanent fix through that avenue is years away.” 

“We’re working on maintaining status quo, maintaining what we have, and doing the best we can with it at this point until we find out a practical way to continue to fund and grow operations without continuously relying on (voter approval),” he said.

NEWS TIP? Contact reporter Krista Kroiss at [email protected].

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