Frequently Asked Questions to the City of Cedar Park regarding the discontinuation of free fire service to non-contracted areas of the City’s Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ)

This document is bookmarked. Click on your question and it will take you directly to your answer. FAQs and answers will be updated by the City periodically.

What is happening, and why?

Who made this decision, and when does it take effect?

Where can I find the minutes to the December 9, 2010 City Council meeting?

What is the City of Cedar Park doing to communicate with residents of the non-contracted areas of the City’s ETJ?

How does the city fund Emergency Medical Service (EMS) and fire protection for residents of Cedar Park?

We get water and/or sewer from the City. Don’t I pay for fire service with that?

I have a Leander (or other city) address. How is it that I am in the Cedar Park ETJ?

Is it mandated by law for the City to provide fire protection to everyone?

Can the City offer subscription service?

Can the City offer “fee per call” service?

Why can’t the City annex some of the non-contract areas of the ETJ? Is it because of the costs of upgrading wastewater and sewer infrastructure?

Why did the City of Cedar Park provide free, professional fire and first responder service to the non-contract areas of the ETJ all these years? Was it state mandated?

What happened to the equipment and property that the City of Cedar Park acquired from the Cedar Park Volunteer Fire Department when it transitioned from a volunteer to a professional fire department?

Who provides Insurance Service Office (ISO) ratings to insurance companies?

What are the inter-agency (municipality/Fire Department) mutual aid agreements in regard to fire protection in the greater Cedar Park, Leander and Jonestown area?

What other fire departments (if any) do youwork with if the need arises?

How do you define response time and what is the average response time of the Cedar Park Fire Department?

Do you have the required apparatus and training needed to access water sources in our specific neighborhoods?

What is the size of the area and how many households do you currently serve?

What is the estimated cost of your service per household?

How many firefighters do you have, professional and volunteer?

How many fire stations do you have?

What are the hours of operation of each fire station?

What kind of equipment does each station have?

What is the total number of vehicles in your fleet, by type?

How many engines, pumpers, and ladder trucks are on call?

How is each engine manned?

Do your trucks have brush fire equipment?

Where may residents review the City of Cedar Park’s annual budget?

What do you dispatch when you receive notice of a structure fire?

A: Over the years, the City of Cedar Park Fire Department evolved from a volunteer fire department into a professional fire department. Over time, several areas of the City’s Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ), being outside of the City Limits such as your neighborhood, were left in a position of receiving professional fire and first responder services at no cost because there is no mechanism in place to pay for these services. These areas are the non-contracted parts of the City’s ETJ, meaning that they have no single entity to contract with the City to provide them professional fire and first responder service. Several areas of the City’s ETJ do have contracting entities, such as Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs) and Emergency Service Districts (ESDs), which have the legal authority to enter into agreements with the City for these services.

While the City of Cedar Park would like to serve the non-contracted areas of its ETJ, the City has a responsibility to its citizens and contracted ETJ customers to ensure that the costs of professional fire and first responder services are provided in a fair and equitable way. In pursuit of attaining equity between paying citizens, residents of the contracted areas of the ETJ, and residents of the non-contracted areas, the Cedar Park City Council voted to address this issue by providing a timeline by which the City will discontinue free service to non-contracted areas of the City’s ETJ.

Q: Who made this decision, and when does it take effect?

A: The Cedar Park City Council voted on December 9, 2010, establishing a timeline by which the City will discontinue free professional fire and first responder service to non-contracted areas of the City’s ETJ.

There are two timelines. If the non-contracted areas of the ETJ form a contracting entity by November 8, 2011, the Cedar Park Fire Department will continue to serve the members of that entity through December 31, 2012, which will allow time to choose a service provider for your area.

Those areas which are not members of a contracting entity by November 8, 2011 will lose professional fire and first responder service from the Cedar Park Fire Department on January 1, 2012.

Q: Where can I find the minutes to the December 9, 2010 City Council meeting?

A: Minutes to all Cedar Park City Council meetings, dating back to 1999, can be found on the City of Cedar Park website.

Q: What is the City of Cedar Park doing to communicate with residents of the non-contracted areas of the City’s ETJ?

A: In 2007 the Cedar Park Fire Department held neighborhood meetings with residents of affected areas to discuss the inequity issues. During the months prior to Council’s decision in 2010, the City held several public meetings to restart the dialogue with residents regarding these issues. Local newspapers have covered this issue. The City sent a letter to all residents in the non-contracted areas of the ETJ, based on the City’s GIS mapping system, has had ongoing dialogue with residents who provided e-mail addresses and other contact information, and has used its website to communicate with residents in the affected areas.

The City will continue to share factual information, such as answers to frequently asked questions, via the City website; offer free space for your community meetings; and host two public meetings in which we will run through the City’s timeline, respond to questions, and share information about resources which may be helpful.

What the City is prohibited from doing is any act that would influence a vote for or against the decision to form a contracting entity.

Q: How does the city fund Emergency Medical Service (EMS) and fire protection for residents of Cedar Park?

A: EMS for the City and the ETJ is a county function and is funded through Williamson County or Travis County. The City of Cedar Park has a Fire Department that provides a variety of services including being the first responders to emergencies, as well as providing fire protection.

The City of Cedar Park Fire Department service for citizens is funded through ad valorem (property) taxes and other revenue streams that make up the General Fund. Contracted areas of the ETJ pay a fee for the service.

Q: We get water and/or sewer from the City. Don’t I pay for fire service with that?

A: No, you are paying for the cost of services for providing potable water and treated wastewater.

Q: I have a Leander (or other city) address. How is it that I am in the Cedar Park ETJ?

A: Postal Codes were originally based on the proximity to the closest City’s limits. However, as Cedar Park, Leander and Austin have developed, the boundaries of the each City’s ETJs have been modified, and as a result, some subdivisions may find that their postal codes no longer align with their respective Cities.

Q: Is it mandated by law for the City to provide fire protection to everyone?

A: No.

Q: Can the City offer subscription service?

A: Subscription service is a system in which the individual property owner or household elects to or not to receive service. The City has determined that it is not feasible or practical to offer subscription service. According to the State Fireman-Fire Marshal’s Association, no one in Texas has subscription service. Subscription service is error-prone, and creates jurisdictional issues. For example, if there is a call for service to an area that happens to fall in the middle of two jurisdictions, the question of who responds arises. Another example is could be if residents are late on payments, but call for service during the lag time. There is also the possibility that a crew could misunderstand the dispatcher or misread the computer regarding the address, when one home may subscribe to service and another does not.

Q: Can the City offer “fee per call” service?

A: “Fee per call” service is a system in which a caller is charged a rate based on the services provided for that call. The City has determined that charging a “fee per call” is not sustainable for the City. Regardless of whether the Cedar Park Fire Department receives a single call, it must staff firefighters and EMS personnel around the clock, seven days a week, 365 days a year. To pass along the cost only to those who call for service would not be economically feasible to the caller, nor would it be fair and equitable.

Q: Why can’t the City annex some of the non-contract areas of the ETJ? Is it because of the costs of upgrading wastewater and sewer infrastructure?

A: We periodically review cost and expense information related to the viability of annexation of different areas of the City’s ETJ. At this point we do not have any neighborhoods on our annexation plan.

Q: Why did the City of Cedar Park provide free, professional fire and first responder service to the non-contract areas of the ETJ all these years? Was it state mandated?

A: No, it was not state-mandated. Over the years, the City of Cedar Park Fire Department evolved from a volunteer fire department into a professional fire department, with the hiring of the first professional firefighters in 1994.The last volunteers remained part of our professional fire department until the early 2000s.

Over time, several areas of the City’s ETJ, such as your neighborhood, were left in a position of receiving professional fire and first responder services at no cost because there is no mechanism in place to pay for these services.

Areas of the City’s ETJ continued to be served by the Cedar Park Volunteer Fire Department initially and this service continued with the Cedar Park Fire Department to present. However, the City of Cedar Park began contracting for fire protection services with areas in the ETJ that had a contracting entity, such as a MUD or an ESD. The remaining areas in the ETJ that do not have an established contracting entity have continued to receive service due to a lack of an easily implemented solution.

The Cedar Park City Council recognizes the inequity this has caused with our City residents that pay City taxes and residents of the contracted areas in the ETJ who pay through their contract fees for fire protection services. City staff started meeting with residents in these non-contracted areas in 2007 encouraging these residents to form a contracting entity, for example, an ESD. These non-contract areas in the City’s ETJ have not formed such a funding mechanism with contracting authority and have continued to receive professional fire and first responder service at no cost.

Q: What happened to the equipment and property that the City of Cedar Park acquired from the Cedar Park Volunteer Fire Department when it transitioned from a volunteer to a professional fire department?

A: Financial statements from 1980 through 1993 indicate that many of the assets of the VFD were purchased using borrowed funds. The debt on these assets was paid through the VFD’s annual operating budget which relied primarily on the City of Cedar Park’s fund which accounted for between 50-90% of the total. As a result, during the transition from a VFD to the CPFD, the City assumed both the assets and the debt of the VFD.

Q: Who provides Insurance Service Office (ISO) ratings to insurance companies?

A: The insurance industry receives this data from the ISO that has staff that reviews the services of the local fire department, water distribution system, and emergency dispatch facility based on ISO’s grading criteria. The corporate headquarters is in New York City, and they have field offices throughout the United States, including Texas. The Texas Department of Insurance, through the State Fire Marshal Office has internal staff that liaison with ISO for the State of Texas.

Municipalities and other entities typically assist local insurance agents and residents by informing them of the City’s ISO rating for their residence or business. The City of Cedar Park has this information on the City website to assist these stakeholders. Check with your homeowner’s insurance company to find out whether it uses ISO ratings when calculating risk, and if a change in ISO rating for your area could affect your homeowner’s insurance rate.

Q: What are the inter-agency (municipality/Fire Department) mutual aid agreements in regard to fire protection in the greater Cedar Park, Leander and Jonestown area?

A: Fire departments in Travis and Williamson counties have separate mutual aid agreements. Through mutual aid agreements, Cedar Park will assist another fire department if it has the resources available, and vice versa. However, Cedar Park is not mandated by virtue of any agreement to respond.

Q: What other fire departments (if any) do youwork with if the need arises?

A: We work primarily with North Lake Travis Fire Department, Leander Fire Department, Jollyville Fire Department, and Sam Bass Fire Department.

Q: How do you define response time and what is the average response time of the Cedar Park Fire Department?

A: CPFD firefighters are the first responders to any emergency, including medical assist calls and car accidents, in Cedar Park and the City’s ETJ. Response time is defined as the total time it takes from the moment a 911 call is dispatched to the moment a CPFD truck arrives on scene. In 2009, our total response time city-wide was just under 7:30 minutes 65% of the time on all emergency responses. If it is in response to a fire, it takes approximately two minutes once the CPFD arrives todeploy hose lines, get water on the fire, and initiate search operations.

Q: Do you have the required apparatus and training needed to access water sources in our specific neighborhoods?

A: Yes.

Q: What is the size of the area and how many households do you currently serve?

A: We currently serve the entire city and all areas of the ETJ. This is comprised of about 80,000 residents. Cedar Park (City and ETJ combined) is approximately 33 square miles.

There are approximately 17,700 residences in the City and approximately 7,700 in the City’s ETJ. About 6,700 of these residences are in the contracted areas of the City’s ETJ, and about 1,000 residences are in the non-contracted areas of the City’s ETJ.

Q: What is the estimated cost of your service per household?

A: The current estimated monthly cost is $20.55 per residence.

Q: How many firefighters do you have, professional and volunteer?

A: The Cedar Park Fire Department has 66 full-time firefighters and two civilian administrative assistants. The CPFD has no volunteers.

Q: How many fire stations do you have?

A: The City of Cedar Park has four fire stations.

Q: What are the hours of operation of each fire station?

A: All Cedar Park Fire Department stations are operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Q: What kind of equipment does each station have?

A: Two stations have a Quint (combination pumper and ladder truck) and the other two stations have an engine (pumper) company.

Q: What is the total number of vehicles in your fleet, by type?

A: Two Quints, four engines, (two are reserves if front-line units are out of service for repairs), one heavy rescue, three brush trucks, one hazardous materials truck and trailer, one swift water/dive recovery trailer, one command/communications trailer, 1 battalion chief vehicle, three command vehicles, three fire inspector vehicles, and one training vehicle.

Q: How many engines, pumpers, and ladder trucks are on call?

A: All of the equipment as listed above is on call at all times.

Q: How is each engine manned?

A: We have a minimum of four firefighters assigned to the Quints and engines and one battalion chief. Ultimately, we have minimum staffing of 17 firefighters 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Q: Do your trucks have brush fire equipment?

A: The three brush trucks carry water and foam.

Q: Where may residents review the City of Cedar Park’s annual budget?

A: The City website, under departments, finance, then budget and documents: http://www.cedarparktx.us/cp/fin_docs.aspx

Q: What do you dispatch when you receive notice of a structure fire?

A: For a structure fire, we would dispatch two Quints, two engines, a battalion chief, automatic/mutual aid engines from Leander, Jollyville, and Sam Bass. We can call North Lake Travis for assistance as well if needed.