Taxpayer affront: a fire protection surcharge

Should taxpayers who pay the full cost of their community’s fire department as part of their annual property tax bills be charged an extra fee when they need fire department services?

By any standard of fairness, the answer should be no.

Yet the Port Washington Fire and Police Commission is entertaining the idea of billing residents for fire department services they have already paid for with their taxes.

The commission seems to be on the verge of contracting with a company that would be paid to collect fees charged to users of fire department services from their insurance carriers. Fire Recovery USA would facilitate claims on the residents’ insurance policies to cover the fees and be paid 22% of the amounts collected. 

Charging taxpayers fees in addition to taxes for fire department services is a dubious proposition for any community (it is illegal in at least 10 states though not in Wisconsin), but it would be jarringly inappropriate for the City of Port Washington, where taxpayers carry an unusually heavy burden of tax support for the fire department.

The city’s tax levy was increased by $1.175 million—14.3%—last year to hire additional firefighter/paramedics, raising the tax rate by $91 per $1,000 of assessed value. The impact on the owner of a house assessed at $235,000, the median value in the city, was a tax increase of $214 a year. Much to the credit of the citizens of Port Washington, the tax increase was approved by voters in a referendum.

On top of that, the tax bills city property owners will receive in December will be inflated by a levy increase for debt service on $31.8 million in borrowing for a public safety building that will include a state-of-the-art fire station and a new $1 million pumper truck. That tax increase will likely amount to around $300 per year for the owner of a house valued at $300,000.

Under the policy that could be approved by the Police and Fire Commission, homeowners who paid for fire department protection with those taxes and were struck with an emergency that required the aid of firefighters or paramedics would be charged extra for those services. 

Really? Is the city going to tell its residents, in effect, it’s too bad your home was damaged by fire, but here’s an invoice you have to pay for the work your tax-supported firefighters did to extinguish the blaze?

Don’t worry about that, says the company making the pitch for fire department service billing—insurance companies, not the owners, will pay.

As appealing as sticking it to insurance companies may be, it isn’t that simple. The Fire Recovery USA rep told commission members “a good majority” of insurance companies pay claims for the fees. Which means, of course, that some don’t pay. In those cases, the onus for payment could be on property owners who could then be vulnerable to any collection efforts authorized by their city government.

Even when insurance companies pay the fees, it’s not free money. The owner pays for the insurance and the premiums are affected by claims.  

The notion that a fire-protection fee is somehow justified erodes the fundamental covenant  of municipal government. Government exists to provide essential services. Citizens make that possible by paying taxes in whatever amount their government tells them is needed. That’s the agreement. Citizens can’t change it, and government shouldn’t try to by tacking on a surcharge.   

That affront to taxpayers, if the city succumbs to the temptation to enact it, would produce, after the collection company takes its generous cut, the grand sum of about $35,000 a year—.0027 of 1% of the city’s $12.8 million 2026 budget.