Kensington's fire department is now paid for with a contract with the City of El Cerrito, estimated at $4,897,000 in the district's draft FY 2026-27 budget. On a Kensington tax bill, the line with "fire" in its name is a special tax of $83 per parcel. Voters approved it in 1980. It has no inflation adjustment and no end date, and this fiscal year it will raise about $201,000. That covers about four cents of every dollar on the contract.

The rest comes from Kensington's share of the countywide 1% property-tax levy. That has a practical effect for anyone buying here. The special-tax lines on your bill are flat dollar amounts, the same on a modest house and a large one. What you pay for the home shows up in the 1% levy, and that levy is what mainly pays for the community's police and fire service.

The four cents and where the rest comes from

Kensington is unincorporated, so it has no city council and no city budget. The Kensington Community Services District, or KCSD, covers every property in the unincorporated community. It also handles the jobs a city would usually do, like police, fire, parks and the community center.

The district's FY 2026-27 budget packet lists every revenue line. Its fire department shows $200,802 in special taxes and no separate property-tax line. The district puts all of its property-tax money into the General Fund, and the largest line there is the county 1% levy, projected at $8,800,000. The board adopted the budget on June 11, 2026, with seven votes in favor and two directors absent.

The adopted budget doesn't split that $8.8 million between police and fire. The year before it does, because the two former districts still had their own columns:

In FY 2025-26, nearly 70% of Kensington's levy share was on the fire side. The combined projection for FY 2026-27 is about 4% higher. The $83 fire tax has stayed the same for more than four decades. So almost all of the growth in fire funding has to come from the levy, which follows assessed values. In California, assessed values usually take their biggest jumps when a home sells.

Police funding was built in flat layers

The police side has more special-tax money than fire, and those taxes were added a layer at a time. A 2015 history in the Kensington Outlook explains why. It reported that Proposition 13 cut Kensington's police funding by about 60%, and that voters then passed one special tax after another to fill the gap:

1. In 1980, a police special tax of $45 a year per single-family home.
2. In 1984, an increase to $90.
3. In 1993, an increase to $300, after state funding was cut and about $200,000 in local property taxes was shifted to the state's Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund.
4. In 2010, Measure G, an additional police tax of $200 per parcel that rises with inflation.

Measure G is the only one of these taxes that keeps up with inflation. Voters approved it on June 8, 2010, at $200 per residential parcel, and the board has to adopt a resolution each year before it can raise the tax by the Bay Area consumer price index. For July 2026 through June 2027, the board raised it by 3.7975%, from $312.43 to $324.30 per single-family parcel. Multi-unit residential and commercial parcels pay $486.45, and vacant parcels pay $97.29. The June 11 minutes show the resolution passed 7 to 0.

The police budget expects $686,000 from the older police special tax and $741,000 from Measure G this year. That's real money, but it's still only a fraction of the levy figure above. And because each of these taxes is charged per parcel, a house that sells for twice as much as its neighbor pays the same amount.

Why one district now runs both services

Kensington had a separate fire district for a long time. The 2015 Outlook piece raised combining the police and fire districts as one way to deal with the revenue shortfall. It also warned that the process would be complicated and could cost the community some money to the county. Ten years later it happened. Both districts filed applications in March 2025. Contra Costa LAFCO, the county commission that approves changes to local government boundaries, gave its reason in its July 9, 2025 staff report: "improved efficiency and economies of scale which will increase annual operating surplus to better serve the community." LAFCO set October 1, 2025 as the effective date. At its August 13, 2025 protest hearing, nobody filed a protest, and the commission unanimously ordered the fire district annexed and dissolved.

The fire tax came along with everything else. In June 2026, the board passed a resolution telling the county to keep collecting the fire tax on the property-tax roll, now for the combined district. The amount stays at $83 per parcel. The FY 2026-27 budget includes money for "work in the upcoming fiscal year to continue integrating the two districts into one," such as website and IT work. The board is getting smaller too. The October 2026 Kensington Outlook reports that seven directors will serve for the next two years, down from nine, and there will be no KCSD election this November because only four candidates filed for four open seats.

So one seven-member board now oversees all of the money described above, both the flat parcel taxes and the much larger levy share. It meets monthly at the Kensington Community Center. Its October meeting was on the 8th.

What having no city means during a sale

Without a city government, a Kensington transaction involves different agencies than a sale in Berkeley or El Cerrito. Each one handles a different piece:

• Sewer lateral. Stege Sanitary District requires an EBMUD sewer-lateral Certificate of Compliance when a property changes title. It's also required for a remodel or construction permit worth $100,000 or more, or when the water meter size changes. Stege makes the owner responsible for the whole lateral, all the way to the sewer main.
• Building plans. Stege also requires its own sewer permit for sewer work, and it reviews Kensington building and development plans before anything else happens.
• Design review. Contra Costa County runs Kensington Design Review. County application materials from 2026 show that a home whose total gross floor area exceeds 2,600 square feet goes to a public hearing, even when the addition itself is small.
• Roads and planning. These belong to the county too. Supervisor John Gioia covers them, along with tree-obstruction issues, at the community's town halls.

The KCSD's own taxes are the small, predictable part of owning in Kensington. Your sale price, your remodel's square footage and the condition of your sewer lateral are the things that vary. They're handled by the county and by Stege, and they cost far more than the parcel taxes.

This post is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Please confirm your own tax bill and any requirements with the county, the district, Stege Sanitary District or a qualified professional.

Frequently asked questions

Did my taxes go up when the fire district merged into the KCSD? The fire special tax stayed at $83 per parcel, and the county still collects it on the tax roll. Measure G went up this year because it's tied to inflation. The merger didn't cause that increase.

Is Measure G the same as the police special tax? No. The district budgets them as separate lines. The older police special tax is expected to bring in $686,000 this year and Measure G $741,000. Measure G is the one that changes with inflation.

Who fights fires in Kensington now? The KCSD contracts with the City of El Cerrito. The draft budget estimated the contract at $4,897,000 and noted that the figure hadn't been confirmed when the budget was prepared.

If you're thinking about buying or selling in Kensington, I'm happy to sit down and go through a property's tax bill line by line with you. We can also plan when to get the Stege lateral certificate so it doesn't hold up your escrow. Reach out to Elic Suazo to schedule a consultation and explore your East Bay options.