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By MARC BENJAMIN
Fresno Bee (California)
Clovis plans to charge the Fresno County Fire Protection District $950 per medical-aid call to Tarpey Village and other unincorporated areas within a mile of the city starting in July.
The City Council is scheduled to take up the issue Monday. The fire district’s board agreed to the fee earlier this month.
Clovis and the county district have operated under a mutual-aid agreement since 1978, and no money changed hands for services.
The result could be longer response times for medical calls in county areas near Clovis, if the county district’s policy restricts how often Clovis crews are called.
Tarpey Village, which would be part of south-central Clovis were it not a county island, is likely to be hardest hit.
To save money, the district’s board asked its staff to develop a policy for sending the Clovis Fire Department to medical calls. Clovis and the county district will go to fires for each other at no charge.
Clovis Fire Department has a station northwest of Tarpey and responds in less than five minutes more than 90 percent of the time, said Clovis Fire Chief Mark Aston.
The county fire district’s nearest station is at Sunnyside and Nees avenues, more than three miles north.
“The city response time could be as low as two to three minutes,” said Doug Hicks, county district division chief. “We could be there in five to nine minutes, depending on traffic.”
Clovis also will pay $950 to the fire district if its firefighters answer medical-aid calls in the city after July 1. But Clovis responds to 10 times more calls than the county.
“It could become a budget impact if we use them,” Hicks said.
Clovis Fire Department answers about 110 medical-aid calls in Tarpey each year, meaning Clovis taxpayers pay for calls outside Clovis, Aston said. The average cost for a fire service call, which includes fires or medical aid, exceeds $2,000, the chief said.
“We wanted to establish an agreement that will take some of the burden off the taxpayers of Clovis,” Aston said.
Mayor Nathan Magsig set the $950 fee, saying it is a way to reimburse city taxpayers while not charging the neighboring fire district the full cost.
“I wanted to find some middle ground,” he said. “Our sales tax rate is higher in Clovis for new facilities for police and fire services. ... I have to make sure the taxes collected in Clovis stay in Clovis.”
Clovis records show the city went to more than 200 calls last year in the county district, and the county answered about 20 calls in Clovis. This year, Clovis has responded 37 times, compared with six responses by the county in Clovis.
American Ambulance, which is the designated “first responder” in the county, also answers Tarpey medical calls from an area near Clovis and Shaw avenues in Clovis. Hicks said the ambulance company normally gets to Tarpey before the county district, but later than Clovis.
American Ambulance meets its goal to arrive within 10 minutes in Tarpey.
In 42 calls to Tarpey from January to April, American Ambulance’s average arrival time was 5 minutes and 44 seconds from the time a dispatcher took the call, said Todd Valeri, American Ambulance general manager. The paramedics’ arrival after receiving the call was 4 minutes, 39 seconds, he said.
Tarpey residents have refused to become part of Clovis. They’re on Clovis’ water system but use Fresno’s sewers.
Tarpey’s population is 3,957. Its tax revenues provide $220,000 of the county district’s $9.1 million budget, Hicks said.
The county district covers 2,400 square miles and 160,000 residents. Paying $950 per call in Tarpey may cost residents in other parts of the county service, said Amy Knight, chairwoman of the Fresno County Fire Protection District board.
Knight questions the formula used for the fee.
“I understand they took their budget and divided it by the number of calls,” she said, noting that Clovis factored in fires with less costly medical calls. “It costs a lot more to cover a structure fire than medical aid.”
The financial impact will be felt more by the county district because Clovis does not call the district even when the location is closer to the county station, Knight said.
“They will drive into Clovis and pass the [county] station,” she said.
The squeeze on the county district will continue. Clovis is planning to annex land north of the county’s Nees and Sunnyside station to Shepherd Avenue between Armstrong and Clovis avenues. Clovis also is opening a station at Temperance Avenue and Highway 168 to cover some areas the district does now.
Ray Remy, vice chair of the fire district, said the district will call Clovis in catastrophic situations, but that American Ambulance is supposed to be the first agency into Tarpey.
“Maybe we need to get compensated for a lot of the EMS [emergency medical services] we do, which we don’t get paid for now,” Remy said, referring to isolated scenes in areas along Interstate 5.
Tarpey residents had not heard about the issue before last week and are worried about how it will be settled.
“It’s all brand-new information to me,” said Robert Graves, former president of the Tarpey Neighborhood Association. “We could be paying with human lives for a couple bucks.”
Bob Levinson, the association’s president, said there have been no meetings with Tarpey residents to discuss the potential service gap.
“I want to make sure there is no lack of communication,” he said. “My concern is that there is a huge amount of conversation and planning by all the involved parties so the response can be as quick as possible.”
Tarpey’s problems are an example of why county islands are a drain on government services and money, said Dan Lynch, director of Fresno County Emergency Medical Services.
“It’s surrounded by two cities and they have city resources much closer,” he said. “This flies right into the reason for why there should be no county islands in the middle of cities.”
But Lynch said a fire department response is a “wasted resource” if it cannot get to a health emergency before an ambulance.
“We could probably get a second ambulance there quicker than we can waiting for an engine from Sunnyside and Nees,” Lynch said.