Charging Emergency Response Fees

After reading an article in the local paper about a city charging an "Emergency Response Fee", I did some searching & reading on the net. I found several locales doing this, particularly in Michigan. The agency in the news story I read was only going to charge non-residents; as residents have paid for Police, Fire & EMS services through taxes. The fees were being considered mainly for car crashes but crimescene investigations (BMV/house/building bugrlary) as well.

I understand revenues are bottomed out & cities are financially strapped. But I have serious problems with this. They argue that the fee will be charged to the insurance company, but that just means MY premium is going to go up.:doh: Charging for what we used to call an "accident" just doesn't seem right to me. And if it should include crimescenes; does that mean just the rich have a shot of their crime solved?

I did see where Riverside, CA, I believe, charged a fee when they have to disperse a large party or gathering after warning the person in charge of a disturbance violation. And I don't have a problem with this really. There is a mental culpability there, but charging a victim or just someone involved in a crash is, to me,:crazy: absurd.

What say you?

There is a smaller city in my jurisdiction that we contract with for LE service that has started doing this on wrecks. They mayor has actually showed up and wanted the driver and vehicle information. Can't wait for someone to give him a piece of their mind when one of their loved ones is still on scene hurt. I'm damn sure not going to give out someone's information in that situation.

We have a very large and very good....and very active Search and Rescue unit that has been thinking about charging the morons that get lost or buried in an avalanche because they were off the trails.


Car 4:mad:

Fire & Rescue where I work now charges a fee IF they transport by ambulance. But, if the fee isn't covered by an insurance company -- they waive it. I think that's a good compromise, hopefully reducing some of the EMS-as-taxi stuff.

But LE response? Nope. Shouldn't be a fee. I don't want to have to start carrying a damn credit card scanner... and it just sets up all sorts of bad things.

Basic fire response? Depends on the situation and set up. I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the folks who didn't pay into the fire district complaining that they didn't respond. That's the set up there -- and they knew it.

Search and rescue? No problem at all with fees. Though I might suggest either an investigation into the circumstances (bad luck is one thing, idiocy by ignoring forecasts or lack of planning is another) or a policy like the ambulance fee above.

Alot of agencies started billing for false alarms in CA. In my old county people would get 2 false alarms a year. Any more and they got charged a fee for it. In San Luis Obispo they were charging for party complaints. Basically when the first call came in they were told to quiet it down. If anymore calls came in that's when the fees racked up.

I have not heard of any of that type fee around here. However, I have always thought that on a non-injury minor accident we are just doing the job for the insurance company. We charge a $25.00 fee for the report though and I think that pays it ok.

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Originally Posted by Broke Hoss

After reading an article in the local paper about a city charging an "Emergency Response Fee", I did some searching & reading on the net. I found several locales doing this, particularly in Michigan. The agency in the news story I read was only going to charge non-residents; as residents have paid for Police, Fire & EMS services through taxes. The fees were being considered mainly for car crashes but crimescene investigations (BMV/house/building bugrlary) as well.

I understand revenues are bottomed out & cities are financially strapped. But I have serious problems with this. They argue that the fee will be charged to the insurance company, but that just means MY premium is going to go up.:doh: Charging for what we used to call an "accident" just doesn't seem right to me. And if it should include crimescenes; does that mean just the rich have a shot of their crime solved?

I did see where Riverside, CA, I believe, charged a fee when they have to disperse a large party or gathering after warning the person in charge of a disturbance violation. And I don't have a problem with this really. There is a mental culpability there, but charging a victim or just someone involved in a crash is, to me,:crazy: absurd.

What say you?

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to avoid getting into a huge discussion about morals, politics, and economics ill just say i agree with you.

the small township i live in writes tickets for anything and everything they can because thats where they generate most of their revenue. sucks for outsiders cause they play favorites with the residents! :D

I think charging for non-emergency or frivolous responses is ok. My old agency charged for false alarm calls. If there's not a crime, or a public safety issue I think we could charge for it.

Problem with that though is you can't squeeze blood from a rock. Most of the people calling 911 because their 12 year old won't go to bed don't have any money anyway.

Also, these BS calls are usually easily cleared without having to write reports. That would have to change to justify billing.

I'm not sure in practice we should implement this. There are usually ways to deal wtih chronic 911 callers who are problems.

Don't get me wrong, the city I spoke of doesn't charge for our response. Even if they didn't have a contract with us we would respond anyway. If the FD responds they are looking to charge. Particularly on some of the busier roads that run through their limits.

Anyone who would let a house burn down or a crime go unstopped because someone didn't pay a fee (we've seen articles about this here on our forums) needs to take off their uniform and go home.

That said, frivolous calls can and should be billed. False alarms, search and rescue when the skiier ignored the out of bounds sign, that sort of thing.

I agree with charging careless hikers, skiers, etc for search and rescue missions.

I agree with vol. FD's when they charge for fire services, specifically small, rural departments with a very small tax bas. But full time paid departments typically have a large enough tax base to cover their expenses. Not only that, but the people involved are sacrificing a considerable amount of time, and although it's volunteer they (the individuals, department, or their municipality or township) should be compensated for the considerable time devotion put forth by the volunteers. In addition, fire departments are EXPENSIVE to operate. More so than a PD in my opinion. The dept. I'm on is looking at buying a new mini pumper (basically a big Ford 550) and we're looking at a price tag of around $160,000. Large trucks can cost over a million dollars. It's tough for departments in an area with 700 residents to cover those costs with just tax dollars.

I also agree with volunteer ambulances charging for their services for basically the same reasons as the volunteer FD's.

And I do not agree with charging for basic police services. BUT....I don't see a problem with charging for nuisance issues like false burglar alarms. My dept. charges after the 4th false alarm in a calendar year, and after the 6th we stop responding until the business owner sends us a letter explaining what they did to fix the problem(s).

I'm a BIG supporter of our local VFD, they're who's coming if I need help. And yes, they are different than municipally supported departments.

jmur5074-1 of the local departments has an engine for sale. They would like for it to go to a working department if you hear of someone looking.

I don't agree with it. I think as long as taxes come from property and sales then people visiting your jurisdiction will be contributing something via, mcdonalds, gas, coffee, hotel something.

Back in the early 60's the then sheriff of my parish (county) stated that everyone who resides in the parish (municipalities included) pays taxes for their Sheriff's Office. In Louisiana you HAVE to have a Sheriff's Office by constitution city PD's are optional. Therefore you HAVE to pay taxes that go to the Sheriff's Office. He said people in the city pay for Sheriff's Office service and they will get it. We have 6 cities in our jurisidiction and we police inside every single one of them regardless of city police presence. We answer calls for service in all of our cities and enforce laws, traffic laws and are proactive inside all cities. This tradition has carried on since the 60's here and any Sheriff that attempts to change that will comitt political suicide. We match the same amount of deputies in our cities as our city pds have. In a few we have more of us then they do. This has afforded our city pd's to get by without having to severely increase their force. As a result our city PD's rely on us (and the citizens) if we pulled out of the cities they would not have sufficient manpower to sustain the level of service our citizens have. To replace the deputies in the city limits with city officers would require then to double their patrol force.

So with that said, the last thing all the Sheriff's since the 60's here would do is charge a city in our jurisdiction for service that they already pay for in property taxes. As a result of growing up in my jurisdiction with the thinking of not double dipping on citizens I don't think it's right. I can say this as a result we are very well funded. My dept has all the funding we need and more as a patrol deputy I could not ask for more or better gear and equipment. We have never had a problem getting any taxes or renewels passed that the S.O. requests from the voters. About a year ago the Sheriff stated that we had approximately $36 million dollars in our rainy day fund. IMO this is what you end up with when you don't nickel and dime your supporting base and provide them with a quality and professional service.

That question came up with a female in our area who would call 9-1-1 for non-emergency reasons, usually because she was drunk or hi, or both. For example, she was involved in a crash (OWI) and stood outside her vehicle for about a half hour before she called, and got bit up pretty bad by mosquitos. That 9-1-1 call was of course fine, but about two days later she called 9-1-1 and was intoxicated requesting the officer go to her house right away, but wouldn't specify. The 9-1-1 operator asked her if it was an emergency (since they get called about once a week by her) and she said it was. The officer arrived on scene and the female asked him to take her for a drive around town so the wind would blow on her mosquito bites. About 75% of her calls are non-emergency, and account for about 30% of the total cases for this municipality. They finally started charging her criminally... with misuse of 9-1-1. She went to jail, got charged and now she only calls about once a month.

The point is there are people out there who probably should be charged for the calls. We don't have the staffing to be running all over to 9-1-1 hangups of a kid playing with the phone. (which happens alot with parents letting kids play on iphones etc.) There are some houses we go to several times a year for this.

So, IMO I think you should get unlimited legitimate emergencies without fear of being charged for them. But after 3 bogus 9-1-1 calls, you should be either fined or charged, depending on the cercumstances.

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Originally Posted by Bjohnson63

So, IMO I think you should get unlimited legitimate emergencies without fear of being charged for them. But after 3 bogus 9-1-1 calls, you should be either fined or charged, depending on the circumstances.

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This sounds reasonable.

You don't have a law about falsely summoning the police? Virginia's is HERE. It's been used on idiots calling 911 for bullshit repeatedly.

I'm aware of a city in the Twin Cities (MN) that after "X" amount of false/ficticious 911 calls, you're banned. Their dispatch center won't take 911 calls from that phone number anymore. Apparently some people go to the neighbors, the corner store, phone booths, etc, to call 911 after they're banned.


That's extreme.

We do have a mis-use of 911 statute that applies. but its rarely enforced.

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Originally Posted by Jks9199

Fire & Rescue where I work now charges a fee IF they transport by ambulance. But, if the fee isn't covered by an insurance company -- they waive it. I think that's a good compromise, hopefully reducing some of the EMS-as-taxi stuff.

But LE response? Nope. Shouldn't be a fee. I don't want to have to start carrying a damn credit card scanner... and it just sets up all sorts of bad things.

Basic fire response? Depends on the situation and set up. I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the folks who didn't pay into the fire district complaining that they didn't respond. That's the set up there -- and they knew it.

Search and rescue? No problem at all with fees. Though I might suggest either an investigation into the circumstances (bad luck is one thing, idiocy by ignoring forecasts or lack of planning is another) or a policy like the ambulance fee above.

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It has been quite a few years since I did the Fire and EMS thing. However, when I was involved the practice you are describing can get the department in some hot water. If you are going to bill for services, you can't just bill the insurance companies and not bill for private citizen for the amount the insurance company doesn't cover or if the citizen is uninsured. You must make and document some attempt to collect or you can get in trouble with the Medicaid and Medicare regulatory people which is not a good thing because that is where to bulk of the payments come from.

FB

iF YOU'RE IN A ROAD TRAFFIC COLLISION THEY CHARGE YOU FOR AMBULANCE AS ITS A RECOVERABLE INSURANCE EXPENSE.
I THINK THE FIRE SERVICE CAN CHARGE FOR CERTAIN THINGS.
THE POLICE NEVER CHARGE YOU FOR ANYTHING, UNLESS IT IS FOUND TO BE A CASE OF WASTING POLICE TIME IN WHICH CASE IT'S AN OFFENCE AND YOU GET A TICKET OR GO TO COURT.
HOWEVER NO SERVICE REFUSES TO ATTEND IF CALLED.