Copyright 2006 The Press Enterprise, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
By CHRIS RICHARD
The Press Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.)
Despite objections that San Bernardino’s paramedic fee unfairly targets cash-strapped residents, the City Council approved a new fee structure Monday.
Council members voted 4-2 in favor of the fees, with Chas Kelley and Neil Derry dissenting. Councilwoman Wendy McCammack was absent.
The plan reduces fees per call from $250 to $200 and exempts people older than 65 and the poor. Unpaid bills will be referred to a collection agency.
The city will use federal standards to set the economic schedule.
By that measure, a family of four with a gross income of $28,750 would be exempt.
Any city resident who pays a $24 annual fee could avoid the per-call costs.
The collections plan seeks to plug a hole in the earlier fee structure, under which a city contractor billed people just once after a call.
Fire Chief Larry Pitzer said under the city’s earlier system, only about 8 percent of those who received a bill paid it. The department receives about 21,000 requests for emergency service each year, 82 percent of its calls, Pitzer said.
Even at the low payment rate, the fee brings in $250,000 annually, according to a staff report.
Kelley said many of those charged would be families already facing financial strain.
“We seem to be more concerned with keeping that revenue in our coffers than with providing services,” he said.
Kelley said he paid a $250 bill himself after his 12-year-old son was struck by a car while riding his bicycle. A witness called the Fire Department, which sent a paramedic crew from a station about a tenth of a mile away.
“They didn’t even put a Band-aid on him,” he said. “But still, we got that bill.”
Derry predicted the exemptions will excuse about half of San Bernardino’s residents. Like Kelley, he advocated doing away with the charges
“The people who will have to pay are the middle class folks who pay the majority of the taxes in this city,” he said. “They’re getting shafted again.”
Mayor Pat Morris noted that user fees account for about a third of the city budget. Councilwoman Esther Estrada said if the city deleted them, it also would have to slash services.