Commissioners with the Bainbridge Island Fire Department unanimously decided late last week to put a $16 million bond measure to pay for new and improved fire hall facilities before voters in the February election.

Voters will also decide the fate of a 9-cent levy increase that would pay for an additional three firefighters to staff the department’s north end station on Phelps Road.

The three new hires, if voters approve the funding, would join the three firefighters that the board approved hiring earlier last week.

The six new firefighters would help Station 23 be staffed 24/7, with help from existing firefighters who would be paid overtime.

The decisions to put the two measures before voters at a special election early next year once again unveiled the chasm between the newest members of the fire board and Chairman Scott Isenman, the senior member of the commission who supported administration’s request for a higher tax levy and a $17.1 million bond request for new fire facilities.

Isenman found no support from his fellow commissioners after he pushed for a tax levy that would pay for six more firefighters for Station 23 — which would bring the total staffing up to nine — and the bond package proposed by Fire Chief Hank Teran.

Isenman asked commissioners to approve a 14-cent levy, and noted that the fire department could lower its actual levy after the first year it went into effect, which would have preserved the ability of the department to “bank” the untapped levy capacity or build up its reserve funding for use at a later date.

Fellow commissioners were skeptical.

“If we collect it, we’re going to spend it, that’s just what happens,” said Commissioner Dan Morrow.

Others suggested that adding nine full-time firefighters to Station 23, instead of hiring six and relying on overtime to fill vacant shifts, would be “overstaffing” the fire hall on Phelps Road.

Isenman and the fire chief strongly disagreed, but Commissioner Teri Dettmer said officials needed to keep in mind the ability of all island taxpayers to handle the tax increases.

“It’s easy for us to say, you know it’s only 5 cents, it’s only $1,000.”

“It’s small potatoes,” Dettmer said.

“You have to remember, there are residents on the island who are struggling,” she said.

Fire officials keep saying this is a wealthy island, Dettmer added, “but not everybody is.”

Next year’s levy rate is 86 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

Fire officials had suggested a 14-cent increase from 86 cents to $1 (per $1,000 of assessed valuation).

On a 4-1 vote, commissioners approved a 9-cent increase for the ballot measure, which would put the levy rate in 2016 at 95 cents (per $1,000 of assessed valuation).

The difference between the two levies will save the owner of a $500,000 property approximately $25 in taxes for the general fire levy in 2016.

If voters approve the 95-cent levy, the owner of a $500,000 home will pay $675 in 2016 for the general fire levy. [The current levy for a $500,000 property is $660, which will drop to $630 next year.]

When discussion then turned to a bond measure that would replace Station 21 and Station 22, and refurbish Station 23, commissioners again sought to cut down the size of the request from its proposed size of $17.1 million.

Some on the board recalled that the department’s facilities consultant figured that the size of the improvement project could be cut by 10 percent, and Morrow suggested setting the bond at $16 million, with the goal of realizing more cost savings in the months ahead.

Along those lines, some board members said they didn’t think Station 23 should be renovated.

Isenman, however, recalled that when their consultant walked them through the fire hall designs, the stations had not been overbuilt.

“I don’t think there was a lot of fluff in there,” he said.

Cutting the proposed bond measure by any amount was arbitrary, Isenman said.

“You’re pulling a number out of the air. You’re shopping a number around,” he told his fellow commissioners.

After Isenman failed to find support for the $17.1 million bond measure for the February ballot, commissioners then voted 5-0 to reduce the size  to $16 million.

If approved by voters, the bond measure will add roughly $80 in taxes annually to the tax bill of the owner of a $500,000 home.

The $17.1 million measure would have cost the owner of a $500,000 home approximately $85 in new taxes each year.