Politics & Government

Ambulance Transport Fee Gets OK to Begin March 18

Mercer Island City Council approved the fee for BLS ambulance transport of $770 will last for one year and begin on March 18.

Despite worries that creating a new fee during hard economic times was bad public policy, Mercer Island City Council approved a new ambulance transport fee at a public meeting Monday night in City Hall Council Chambers.

Some on the Mercer Island City Council called it a tax, others called it a fee and still others said it was an opportunity "to keep (firefighters) busy" during idle periods. But in the end, a majority of the council supported adopting the ordinance, 5-2, to impose the year-long fee, set to expire on March 17, 2012. Councilmembers Mike Cero and Mike Grady opposed the measure.

"It's a win for Islanders and win for fiscal policy," said Councilman Dan Grasuz, who supported the measure.

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The new fee of $770, beginning on March 18, would be assessed for every patient with non life-threatening health issue taken to hospital by the Mercer Island Fire Department. Local firefighters are certified at the Emergency medical technician (EMT) level to offer Basic Life Support transport (BLS). Members of the public suffering a life-threatening health issue are still treated by King County Medic One ambulances which offer Advanced Life Support (ALS) services. 

The fee was first publicly proposed by City Manager Rich Conrad as a way to balance the city's projected $6 million shortfall for the 2011-2012 biennium. Under the proposal, the fire department would give preference to MIFD ambulances—rather than contacting a private ambulance company—to transport BLS patients to hospital. Mercer Island Fire Chief Chris Tubbs estimated the fire department would increase the annual number of transports from 100 to 700-800 trips.

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Councilwoman Jane Meyer Brahm, in one of her first acts on the council, supported the measure because it could potentially speed up service times to the hospital.

"You have folks come and they decide whether to transport you or call someone else," she said. "There is a delay there. I see a benefit in transporting."

Councilman El Jahncke moved to amend the ordinance to place the word "sunset" into the provision to place an added degree of legal certainty that the fee would expire after one year. The amendment passed unanimously, but didn't assuage the concerns of Cero and Grady.

The administration and billing of the fee, handled by an outsourced company, the potential for overtime and the toll it would take on the fire department's vehicles and fuel costs were just a few of the concerns that Grady raised. He said he objected to charging a fee for a public safety service—something several other councilmembers disputed.

"When you talk about this to the firefighters, to a man, they're all opposed to it," Grady said.

He disputed the city's projected revenue of $330,000 for the fee and estimated the true figure was closer to $220,000, without considering other embedded costs. Instead of raising the money from the fee to balance the budget, Grady advocated using a portion of the savings from the Sewer Lake Line Replacement Project, which is predicted to be completed under budget by $1.2 million.

Councilman Cero appeared to flatly rejected the fee on principal.

"I didn't like the way we balanced this budget," he said. "We took the easy way out, and the easy way out was creating a whole new tax … The 'sunset', that's a good intent, but the government doesn't 'sunset' new taxes."

The fee was originally set to begin in February, but City Hall moved the date to March due to intervening holidays and scheduling a legal notice in the Mercer Island Reporter.

The city council also approved the city's contract with the Mercer Island Police Department's union; hired a consultant to work on a Transit Oriented Development study for the Town Center; authorized bids for installing pedestrian signals on Island Crest Way and allowed City Finance Director Chip Corder to seek financing for First Hill water system and pump improvements.


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