The  Mail in ballots for a special assessment for the Nevada County Consolidated Fire District  have been counted and  the assessment has passed with more than 68% of the respondents approving the $53 dollars per parcel tax in the 150 mile consolidated fire district. Chief Tim Fike says this will maintain the current staffing levels of fire stations in the area.  He says the department still has a lot of work to do.

“With this, we’ll be able to maintain our level of coverage, however we have a very, very long year ahead of us and we won’t receive the revenue until December of this year. We’re pretty confident that we can use our reserves until we receive our revenue.”

Consolidated fire district had been losing property tax revenues due to the poor economy and had been browning out stations that they could not adequately staff and were looking at a half million dollar budget shortfall . Failure of the special election   would have meant the loss of 6 firefighters and the permanent closure of 2 stations as well as cuts in other areas. Just under 10 thousand ballots were returned and counted, a 2 thirds approval was required or 66.6 percent and the assessment passed with over 68 percent of the mail in ballots approving the assessment.