A public-safety task force meeting on Jan. 12, 2026, examined preliminary financial models for creating a regional fire district serving four cities, including Troutdale, and agreed to seek more detailed per-capita cost breakdowns before moving toward any formal recommendation. Staff distributed a packet with five scenarios and noted the analyses were still preliminary.

Task force members said the packet showed two commonly discussed tax-rate scenarios — a $2.85 scenario and a higher $3.47 scenario — and described a capital estimate tied to an "8 and one-third" station planning target and a roughly $40 million marker. Members repeatedly pressed staff to add revenue-side items that the models had not yet included, such as inspection fees, EMS billing and potential federal wildfire reimbursements, arguing those revenue streams could materially change net cost to taxpayers.

"We don't know exactly what a full‑fledged proposal from District 1 will be to service all four cities," one participant said. "There should technically be economies of scale because they already have an administrative structure." The group asked staff to request a formal proposal from Fire District 1 and to return a per‑capita cost comparison for each city at the next task force meeting.

Members also debated three broad options: join an existing district (primarily Fire District 1), join or create District 10 (a new district scenario in the packet), or form an entirely new district. Several participants said joining an existing district could avoid creating many new administrative positions, while creating a new district would likely require staffing roughly 20 administrative roles (HR, finance, public information and related positions) unless positions could be transferred from an existing agency.

Participants raised concerns about long-term fiscal pressures on city budgets, noting property-tax assessment rules and past ballot measures that limit annual assessment growth. "The cities, ourselves included, are in this plummeting debt spiral unless we figure out what to do," a member said, urging the task force to weigh options for revenue and service trade-offs carefully.

The packet included compression scenarios showing the interaction of existing fire levies and other taxes; staff highlighted a scenario that produced an estimated $1,341,000 compression effect for discussion purposes. Members asked staff to refine the scenarios and clarify how levies, bonds and other outside levies would affect city revenues under each model.

The group spent limited time considering whether Portland could join the regional approach; members said Portland would likely be a higher‑cost and slower option and recommended focusing on the four cities already engaged in the task force.

Task force members scheduled a follow-up meeting to review refined numbers after the Feb. 12 deadline for additional modeling input. The chair moved to adjourn at the meeting's close; a member responded "Aye," and the meeting ended.

Next steps: staff will add omitted revenue assumptions to the models, produce a per‑capita cost table per city, and seek a formal written proposal from Fire District 1 for comparison with the District 10 and new‑district estimates.