‘Radically Underfunded’: Whitefish Fire Service Area Says Rate Increase is Stalled with County Commissioners

A handful of Whitefish Fire Service Area (WFSA) representatives gathered around a conference room table in Whitefish City Hall last week, sitting across from city councilors with a simple message: “We’re radically underfunded.”

The announcement may have been delivered to Whitefish officials, but its true mailing address is 800 S. Main St. in Kalispell, postmarked for the Flathead County Board of Commissioners. 

While the WFSA contracts all its fire services through the Whitefish Fire Department, it’s the Flathead County Commissioners who approve the flat rate charged to its residents — the only source of revenue for the entity responsible for the fire protection of roughly 75 square miles outside Whitefish city limits.

“State law requires that the commissioners adequately fund the fire service area; that’s the only mechanism for us to get money and to get increases,” WFSA Trustee Dave Kauffman told Whitefish city councilors at a Nov. 2 work session. “We’ve kind of suffered over the years because the flat rate system doesn’t keep up with inflation.” 

“But here we are now, and the challenge is that … our $180 annual fee is the equivalent of approximately nine mills,” he added. “If you compare that to every other fire district in Flathead County, the average is somewhere around 29 to 30 [mills]. Just that fact itself, to me, ought to tell the commissioners that we’re underfunded, and we’re radically underfunded. They don’t seem to want to accept that.”

A mill is a unit of property tax equal to $1 for every $1,000 of a property’s taxable value.

Over the last year-and-a-half, WFSA representatives have attempted to solve the area’s financial jigsaw puzzle, first launching a petition drive for residents to transition the WFSA into a fire district, which would be funded through a voter-approved mill levy based on property values. The campaign fizzled, drawing little response from residents.

The WFSA then shifted its focus increasing its $180 flat rate with approval from the county commissioners, first proposing a flat increase to $420 before scrapping the plan in favor of a graduated increase, which would step up the annual fee on an agreed-upon schedule based on property value. WFSA board members told councilors at the joint work session last week that neither plan has drawn much interest from the commissioners, and the matter hasn’t even earned a spot on a meeting agenda.

As the WFSA and the city of Whitefish plan for the future of their fire service capabilities — especially as costs rise and the population grows — both say they are at a “standstill” without the cooperation of the county commissioners. 

“We’re stuck in the mud now,” WFSA Executive Director DC Haas said. “The commissioners feel as though we have a pretty good contract with the city, and we should keep that. We are saying we have a good contract, but we’re not paying our fair share.”

Created by the Flathead County Commission in 1989, the WFSA contracts all its fire suppression services through the city of Whitefish to cover nearly 50,000 acres surrounding city limits.

The WFSA’s current contract with the Whitefish Fire Department was set to expire in June 2026, but the city and WFSA amended the interlocal agreement in December 2020. This amendment added the requirement that the WFSA would purchase and donate a fire truck to the city, and it extended the compensation schedule through 2036. To maintain fire services, WFSA must make semi-annual payments that will increase each year to the city, with annual payments starting at about $314,000 in 2022 and topping out at just under $545,000 in 2036, according to city documents. 

Over time, the compensation from the fire service area has not kept pace with the city’s increasing costs from inflation and population growth — something the city knew as it negotiated the existing contract, City Manager Dana Meeker said at the work session.

Now the city must decide how much more it will subsidize the WFSA over the next 10 years of the contract and beyond — and whether it has the staffing to keep up with calls.

As growth continues, Meeker said, the challenge goes beyond cost.

“Are they paying their fair share? Are they not?” she said. “The critical question that I think we’re at now is, how do we make sure that we can staff at levels that can respond to calls?

“Last week, I think we were at 16.5, 24-hour days … that we are already committed on calls and have to rely on mutual aid, so that’s a significant concern,” she added.

WFSA Treasurer Thomas Moran told councilors they can pay their share of the currently negotiated contract through 2036, but it leaves them little room to make improvements themselves. Haas, however, also noted his fear of their “eroding” budget as more groups form, like Star Meadows Fire District, looking to leave the WFSA and find fire service solutions of their own. 

“We are [solvent] out to the end of the contract in June of 2036, with still somewhere near $800,000 in the bank,” Moran said. “Problem: we can’t do anything. We can’t remodel our building. We can’t hire firefighters for [Whitefish Chief Cole Hadley]. We’re basically stuck spinning mud, and that’s why we’ve come to the city to try to broker a deal to break through this logjam.” 

When discussing potential solutions, Kauffman asserted the continued pursuit of the county commissioners about a rate increase was the best path forward — despite both WFSA and Whitefish city officials being met with little to no support so far. 

“I think we need to find a way to apply pressure to commissioners to make them accountable,” Kauffman said. “They need to be accountable for the choices that they are making. They need to be on the record saying we think that nine mills is adequate for the Whitefish Fire Service Area when everybody else in the county is at 30.”

Flathead County Commissioner Randy Brodehl, a former Kalispell Fire Chief, told the Beacon on Monday he always asks himself a simple question when weighing funding requests:

“What are you getting for the money that you’re receiving?”

The WFSA, according to Brodehl, hasn’t demonstrated an adequate increase in service for the funds it is requesting. He said WFSA board members have told him the edge of the district is 13 miles from the nearest fire station in Whitefish.

“By tripling the amount of money that they are asking the citizens to pay doesn’t change that response time,” Brodehl said. “It’s still 13 miles, which is typically gonna be 15 minutes or more.” 

“It doesn’t change anything, so the citizens, in my opinion, get little or no change in their fire response in the timeframe,” he added. “That’s why it’s been difficult for me to support that, and I’ve asked them to show me the benefits that come along with that. Because I haven’t heard a change in that, I’m still sitting in the same spot.”

At the Nov. 2 work session with the city, WFSA representatives said the extra funds from a rate increase would be put toward six additional full-time firefighters for the Whitefish Fire Department — a plan both city and WFSA officials agree would benefit both Whitefish and WFSA residents as overall reliance on mutual aid would decrease. 

“We are at that level where we need to make a quantum leap and have two response groups available in the city of Whitefish,” Kauffman said. “By looking at the numbers, our ask for enough funds to hire six additional people, that would be [city] people; we just provide additional funding above the current contract.” 

Brodehl, however, still doesn’t see the payoff, he told the Beacon.

“Pitching the six FTE firefighters for the city of Whitefish doesn’t change the amount of time it takes to get to the Whitefish Fire Service Area,” Brodehl said. “I wanna see some specifics about how that changes the ability to provide emergency services to the Whitefish Fire Service Area. Haven’t seen that yet.”  

Ultimately, Brodehl said the negotiation of the contract between the city of Whitefish and the WFSA isn’t under the authority of the Flathead County Board of Commissioners.

“We don’t have any authority to tell the city or the fire service area what their relationship was with each other,” Brodehl said. “For us to get engaged in something that we have no authority over doesn’t make any sense.”

“The Whitefish Fire Service Area board and … the city of Whitefish have agreed to that rate to 2036,” he added. “So that is up to them to decide what services they want and how they want to provide it.”

Despite no clear path forward carved out in the Nov. 2 work session, Mayor John Muhlfeld assured fire service area representatives that the city and the WFSA are “aligned” and he remains optimistic to find a solution together. The city council will address the matter in their council retreat next month and provide feedback to the WFSA by the end of the year, Muhlfeld said. 

“The FSA, the city’s aligned,” Muhlfeld said. “It’s a matter of getting through to the commissioners somehow.”

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