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Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Council to consider billing nonresident drivers for emergency services
by Brandon Darnell, published on July 20, 2010 at 5:56 PM
Storyline: Local Government
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The next car crash you get into could be more costly than you think. Especially if you’re not a Sacramento resident.
The City Council Law and Legislation Committee decided today to put the measure on the Aug. 5 council agenda.
The goal of the proposed fee is to collect between $600,000 and $1.3 million, allowing the city to reopen one of the browned-out fire stations by next year, according to Sacramento Fire Department Operations Deputy Chief Lloyd Ogan.
Council members Robbie Waters, Lauren Hammond and Sandy Sheedy voted for sending the measure forward, while Councilman Steve Cohn voted against it on the grounds that he would like more details.
As it currently stands, when drivers who are not Sacramento residents are involved in a collision, they will be billed a minimum of $435 for a basic response from the Fire Department, Ogan said.
One of the major details to be figured out is if nonresident drivers involved in a collision would still be charged if they are not at fault.
The prices go up as services increase, depending on whether hazardous materials need to be cleaned up, a fire needs to be extinguished or other factors, Ogan said.
“In general, the high level of service we provide is to a constituency that does little in supporting the cost of that service,” Ogan said.
He added that the Fire Department sees the issue as Sacramentans subsidizing nonresident emergency costs with their property and utility use taxes.
Between 30 and 50 percent of collisions the department responds to involve out-of-town residents, according to Ogan.
Cohn asked that the proposed ordinance include a mechanism to audit the third-party company charged with billing insurance companies for the fees.
Sam Sorich, president of the Association of California Insurance Companies, said the proposed ordinance makes revenue promises it can’t fulfill, could increase insurance rates for California drivers and is unfair to nonresident drivers.
“When insurance policies do cover emergency response fees, the inevitable result is higher insurance costs,” Sorich said. “Those costs will lead to higher insurance rates for our customers.”
Sorich added that the proposed fee “literally adds insult to injury” by billing drivers who recently underwent the trauma of a collision and cited a report released last month by the Yolo County Grand Jury that found a similar program in Woodland to be a “financial failure.”
Ogan said other local agencies, including Roseville and the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, have either adopted similar ordinances or are in the process of doing so.
“Roseville has been doing it for some time now, and it has been a successful program, and they are coming in pretty close to the projected (revenue) recovery they are hoping to get,” Ogan said. “Metro Fire is ready to move on it.”
“We’re not here to make money,” Sheedy said. “We’re here to recover our cost factors only...not to balance the budget with it.”
If approved by the City Council on Aug. 5, the Fire Department would go through the bidding process for companies to handle the insurance billing and could be ready to institute the changes by mid-September, Ogan said.
Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press
Photos by Ed Fogle Maverick Photography
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Richard, so you have been making far fewer visits to Roseville and Woodland too? And you also been speeding around Old Town (there is a parking lot adjacent) where if you had a crash, you would require fire and ambulance emergency services?
Sorich's comments are generalized and unclear.
As a precaution, the fire departmen's EMT took my blood pressure along with my contact information. The police arrived and spoke to me and the driver of the car but since no one was hurt, they did not file a police report.
I got the driver's insurance info just in case. but after several weeks and no lingering injuries, I threw the driver's info away and gave the incident no further thought.
A couple of months after that, I received a bill from the Fire Department for the cost of dispatching the trucks! Since I didn't have the driver's insurance info, I couldn't get him to pay the cost (since he ran into me). I protested the bill (for $80.00) with the fire department to no avail. Then I ignored the continuing overdue notices for several months until the fire department turned it over to a collection agency. I grudgingly paid it to protect my credit rating.
I guess I relate this story for three reasons:
1) To pose a question: Why was the fire departmentcharging me, a city resident who already pays for the fire department through my taxes, before they had City Council approval for such a program, and
2) To vent and say that I feel duped by the fire department. Had I known they would bill me for their services I would have refused them and not given them my contact information.
3) To point out that this is a dangerous precedent. Soon every city and municipality will implement these fees and we will all be subject to hidden taxes when we travel beyond the confines of our own neighborhoods.
Would be interesting to see how quickly they drop to three man crews and stop sending fire trucks to medical calls , if they had to be self-supporting.