South Metro Fire Board Says Rising EMS Demand, Costs Create $50M Annual Gap; Offers Property- or Sales-tax Options

South Metro Fire Rescue officials told Littleton City Council members on May 13 that the district faces steadily rising operating and capital costs driven by increased emergency medical responses, inflation on equipment and long apparatus lead times, and service expansion into new growth areas. "We have identified 2 different revenue solutions, each of which would generate about $50,000,000 a year," said Jim, a South Metro Fire board member, summarizing options under consideration.

The presentation, delivered by South Metro board members and staff including Stephanie Corbeau and Fire Chief Bob Baker, said the district covers about 300 square miles and nearly 600,000 residents, operates 30 stations with roughly 800 personnel, and handled about 52,000 calls last year. Officials said roughly two-thirds of calls are EMS-related and that call volume rose about 20% from 2019 to 2024; fire calls represented about 1% of incidents over that five-year span.

Nut graf: The district says its current mill levy of 9.25 mills — in place since 2004 — and its predominantly property-tax funding mix no longer match forecasted expenses. To close an average annual shortfall of roughly $50 million, the district has presented two principal options to the public and local governments: a 3-mill increase in property tax or a new 0.5% sales tax, each estimated by district staff to produce near the same revenue in preliminary modeling.

District officials laid out the drivers: inflationary pressure on high-ticket items (a Type 1 engine price cited as rising from about $725,000 six years ago to about $1.3 million now), personal protective equipment and breathing apparatus replacements, radio replacement costs (a single radio was cited at about $8,000), and multi-year lead times for apparatus delivery (apparatus ordered in 2024 are expected in 2029). South Metro also described its planned fleet-replacement cadence (medic units roughly eight years, engines ten years, aerials twelve years) and a reserve fleet that officials said contains approximately five to six engines and several medic units.

Council members asked about alternatives to the traditional response model and about whether the department could reduce resource use on lower-acuity calls. South Metro said it is evaluating "alternate response" models — for example, smaller quick-response vehicles or paramedic-only units — but that those models depend on stronger emergency dispatch protocols to identify call types reliably. The district also discussed technology such as drones (used now for larger incidents but not for routine automatic initial response) and integration with traffic- and camera-based feeds at the dispatch center.

On financing, presenters said the district has no debt and a fund-balance policy that targets roughly 23% of expenditures (staff estimated that fund-balance minimums translate to approximately $45–$50 million across funds). Officials said the current revenue forecast (which factors in recent state property-tax legislation) shows a likely downturn compared with a pre-legislation projection and that the expense forecast, which includes staffing for new stations in growth areas such as Sterling Ranch, outpaces revenue under current law.

Survey and outreach work was described as part of the district's community engagement: a statistically valid survey of more than 2,000 voters showed roughly 57% likely or very likely support for a property tax option and roughly 66% for a sales tax in early polling described by staff; presenters emphasized further polling and local outreach are planned. The South Metro board has not taken a final vote on pursuing either revenue measure and said it will use additional polling and stakeholder feedback to inform any decision.

Ending: South Metro staff left the council with an invitation to direct constituents to an engagement website with a property-tax calculator and survey results; no formal council action or vote on a funding measure was taken at the May 13 meeting.