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Input, Disscussion?
This is just my opinion but is it un-ethical and morally wrong to do this? When you think about why the majority of us on here have a love for the job we do, I personally it is not for the $$$$. I do understand that special responses (Haz-Mat, Water Rescue, and other Special Rescues do eat up alot of resources and mnapower. Isn't that what tax dollars are for though? Lets hear your all your thoughts, or if your jurisdiction has came across this?
------- CITY COMMISSION OPENS DISCUSSION ON FEES FOR SERVICES
If the fire trucks come to your house in ------- to put out a fire should you be charged a fee for their service? If a volatile situation develops at your house, and the police and the SWAT team gets called, should you be billed?
If firemen have to cut up your car to get you out of the wreckage after an accident, should that be billed to you? That is a topic that was brought before the ------- City Commission Wednesday in their study session. While many recognize the high costs involved in situations, there is not consensus on what to do. What if the Ku Klux Klan marches in a parade, and extra police are deemed necessary, should the organization pay for that? Chief ---- ------said it’s not easy to budget some expensive events.
Commissioner ----- ------- said she is against this; residents pay taxes already to pay for training, readiness and to have personnel on duty to handle situations. She says that’s why people live in communities.
--------- said he will be collecting more information on costs and what other cities are doing for commissioners consideration.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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In most places, EMS disposables have never been covered by basic taxes. The places where ambulance transport is "free" don't understand that what they're doing is charging their local property tax base for expenses that are incurred by commuters, tourists, and passers-through.
The issue is that nothing we do is "free". This isn't a question of "ethical" or "moral", it's just a decision about how the local government or fire district chooses to structure the revenue side of their finances.
As for "setting themselves up for bigger problems", what bigger problem is there than an insolvent fire department?
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Permalink Reply by Patti Walz on
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As a private citizen, I did not agree with how my local agency spent the tax/grant dollars given to them and swore I would not vote yes for another measure.
Before you start billing private citizens for things maybe agencies should look at exactly how they are spending those funds. Do you really need to spend 16k on a bed? Could you not get the same thing for less somewhere else? Do you really need to buy a hose reel that you will not be able to use? Is this item truly important to the function or is it just cool to own one? If the funds that are given to you are going to maintain your fleet, pay the salaries, etc and you find that you are still under budget then maybe a small flat fee would be acceptable, but before that is done just be prepared to back up your reason for doing this with cold hard facts.
As a firefighter I will vote yes for another measure but will not be happy with it.
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"Hazmat cleanup". No way I'd want a fire department in the hazmat cleanup business. Hazmat emergency response, yes, cleanup, no.
My hazmat team's unofficial motto - "We're plumbers, not janitors."
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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I'm not going to reiterrate what was already said, but searching for revenue is all over. There are places that do non-emergency interfacility transports for a fee. A pro is that this does generate revenue, but the downside is that it increases workload on personnel and may take a rig out of service for an actual emergency. This has been a hot topic around our dept.
Another suggestion was having confined space stand-bys etc, essentially utilizing the USAR team for this. This one was also just a suggestion, but could be another source of revenue. Again a con here is if looking to use duty crews for such things, because it does start to degrade the 911 capabilities.
I can understand such ideas for generating revenue, but the primary reason we are here is for 911 and I don't agree with reducing those capabilities. I can understand such things as an off-duty type of endeavor for personnel, which can help satisfy working conditions issues and can still generate revenue, just not a fan of doing such things as duty crews.
I did like the billing for vehicle fires and couldn't see why not to bill for extrications etc, there should be insurance (Lord knows I pay enough for insurance). When I drove a tow-truck, we would respond to wrecks all the time. Considering a standard tow was like $50 and so much per mile, wrecks would be billed to the body shop/insurance for around $300. I couldn't see why a fire dept also couldn't charge for their response. EMS we already charge, with a higher out of town rate for non-residents, although collections don't always occur.
However, the problem is in my community, like I assume others as well, such revenue doesn't reflect back to the fire dept, but instead goes towards a General Fund. Despite the fact that EMS is a revenue generator for the city, we rarely see it come back to the fire dept....however, there does seem to be some nice flowers in the medians, new street signs, new lights on the bridges and so forth.....you know crucial necessities.
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We have the same problem - it's an arbitrary one that the GASB public accounting standards require.
However, it is still possible to track the amount of revenue generated by the FD plan and give the FD credit on the revenue generated for the General Fund.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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"Do you really need to spend 16k on a bed?"
I hope that was just a wild example. Are they getting king size tempeurpedic beds for each FF?
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Permalink Reply by Barry Copley on
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We are sort of having the same discussion only we're not going to be billing people for their house burning necessarily or using the JAWS to cut them out of vehicles.What our fire department is going to do is bill the ambulance services for LIFTING ASSiSTANCES that we sometimes get toned out for and like for example just a few minutes ago we got toned out to take our 4 wheel drive jeep up someone's hill to bring them off the hill to get them into an ambulance things of that nature.
But thats all our department has mentioned about anything like that.Because we are volunteers and we have a very low budget.Basically the only revenue we receive is by setting up Fundraisers or sometimes we get donations.
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Permalink Reply by John Dobson on
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My dept covers two townships Johnson Twp and Decker Twp. My dept is Johnson Twp fire Dept and is paid for by that township. Decker Twp has a fire dept. They Never respond to there area we are paged with them. We cover them 100% on all calls.
They turned down paying all the bills we sent for a long time until they got a new trustee. We just bill for them for fires not EMS calls. We do not want someone not to call for help if there life is in danger because of fear of a bill.
As firefighter I am happy to help anyone in that township.
As a taxpayer in Johnson Twp I get very angry over carrying there weight why should I foot the bill for all fire protection?
I would not stay on my dept if we refused to respond though.
I Think if they don't pay your depts bills then they need to recoup the taxpayers that do.
As far as billing are own taxpayers you should have a good reason. Like too many false calls or calls that consume a large amout of resources like haz-mat incidents. If you were to bill for "normal calls" it is like charging twice.
I write this remembering my only brother who died because for his fear of medical bills. So billing can and will cost lives I know this way too well I live with the what ifs everyday. I firmly believe a few minutes would have saved his life and now over a piece of paper (money) I am left without a brother.
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:) couple of twin beds with drawers for the volunteer room.
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Permalink Reply by Alan McGuigan on
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That’s how our municipality works it if you live in our community and pay taxes in our community then your covered however if you’re from out of town then you’re going to get a bill usually sent to the individuals insurance company
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There's an easy way around that. Get the car insurance information from the owner the same way the cops do, then directly bill the insurance company. That way there's no additional headache for the car owner and it also eliminates the middleman in the reimbursement process.
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I didn't catch my mistake. I meant to type Hazmat response, not cleanup.
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