After six weeks, the debate ended on a new proposed tariff for the Mojave County Fire District. And despite the specific language of Arizona law, these fire districts will continue to pay county services hourly or per-occurrence fees.
Under state law, the county fire district is obligated to reimburse the county for services including organization, determination of boundary changes, use of the Mojave County Attorney’s Office, and other services provided by county officials. For nearly two decades, these services have been paid on an hourly basis, but Mojave County Treasurer Luke Mounian said the rates were insufficient to cover the county’s expenses.
Mounian last month proposed a per-lot fee structure in which fire districts would pay counties $1.6113 a year for each parcel of land within their respective districts.
However, in the nation’s fifth-largest county, some of these fire districts cover far more county land than others. Under Mounian’s proposed fee structure last month, the Desert Hills Fire District will pay $6,500 in fees this year. But under that plan, Lake Mojave Ranch and the Golden Valley Fire District would pay $28,599 and $35,267 for the same services.
The Mojave County Board of Supervisors rejected Murnian’s plan at its May 1 meeting. On Monday, the board voted to retain the previous hourly rates for these county service fire districts.
“I think we’ll be fine with that,” Mojave County Superintendent Gene Bishop said Monday. “We wanted to be legally correct. The law stipulates that compensation should be paid for services to the fire brigade, and there is an argument that this is in line with the intent of the law.” .”
Bishop said the county may be hurting itself financially by continuing to charge fire districts hourly rates for county services, as opposed to a per-parcel rate structure. However, not all of the value in that exchange appears immediately.
Bishop said the Mojave County Fire District provides services to the county that it does not charge to the county. Fire districts occasionally respond to emergencies beyond their jurisdiction (including land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management) and provide their own facilities for use in training county officials.
“I think the local fire department is overjoyed with this decision,” Bishop said. “[With a per-package fee structure]some of them could have gone bankrupt. We have come to an agreement.”
Services by the Mojave County Treasurer’s Office and Assessor’s Office require an hourly rate from the Fire District only if those services are unrelated to the collection of property taxes.
Under the tariffs approved this week, the fire district could pay $84 per hour for mapping and $68 per hour for administrative services at the assessor’s office.
The Fire District election services fee is $3.04 per registered voter for special elections and $1.45 per registered voter for consolidated elections.
For financial services, the Fire District may pay $133.03 per hour, while the services of the Mojave County Registrar’s Office may cost $15 per recording.
Administrative or administrative services from the Mojave County Treasurer may be charged a fee of $107 per hour.
