Orcas Fire Commissioners are taking a conservative route with the upcoming budget.

After Fire Chief Kevin O’Brien presented his preliminary 2013 numbers, which included a 6.28 percent rise in expenditures, commissioner Clyde Duke asked him to keep cutting and stick with the same budget as 2012.

“I respect the commissioners’ desire to keep the budget at zero or low growth,” O’Brien said. “I can scale back on new programs we were looking at. We can do it.”

One area that Duke doesn’t mind increasing is health benefits. Orcas Island Fire and Rescue is the only district in San Juan County that does not have medical coverage for staff families. O’Brien wants to provide medical insurance starting in 2013 for family members of full-time staff, while Duke wants to see more health benefits go to volunteers as well. Currently, they can submit vouchers for specific medical procedures, but do not have health care coverage.

“It has to be a full deal – all participants,” Duke told the Sounder. “We need to do more for our volunteers.”

“It’s run like a business with a core of career staff who provide support to the 49 volunteers,” O’Brien said. “Our volunteers put in a lot of hours. We can’t do it without them. The standards and laws for firefighters and EMTs are significantly more difficult today than in the past.”

There are seven full-time staff members as well as a handful of part-time people who do things like admin work, maintenance and day-time shifts at the station.

There are four disciplines that volunteers work in: firefighting, EMS services, rescue and wild land. The majority of volunteers are cross-trained in more than one area, which means a minimum of 100 to 140 hours per year. In addition to call response, volunteers participate in weekly drills, meetings, off-island training and the department’s wellness program.

His proposed 2013 operations budget was $1,619,723 with an estimated revenue of $2,103,100. The operations budget for 2012 was $1,524,053 and the estimated revenue is $2,059,600. O’Brien will now go back to the drawing board and get the operations figures back down.

Some of his proposed increases were $5,000 for strategic planning, $75,000 for replacing the part-time firefighter mechanic with a full-time position to be held by an EMT or a firefighter, $19,000 for a public information and admin support position and $41,791 for incident reporting software and training.

The commissioners will have a budget work session on Oct. 30. They plan to approve the budget on Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the Eastsound station.

The current levy, expiring at the end of 2014, funds all operations and has provided funding for the construction of Eastsound Station 21, Deer Harbor Station 24, the purchase of Westsound Station 22, new apparatus equipment and volunteer benefits.

O’Brien said they are considering asking voters to approve a new levy in 2013, a year before the current levy expires.

“My main goal is fiscal responsibility,” he said. “I am always looking at ways to be fiscally responsible while also fulfilling our mission.”

OIFR at a glance

• 2012 call volume is up 9 percent

• The department’s survival rate for heart attack victims is 80 percent with use of a defibrillator

• 75 percent of calls are in Eastsound