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Perrysburg committee weighs billing for auto-accidents and vehicle fires after neighboring township practice
Summary
Committee members discussed whether Perrysburg should bill for fire responses to vehicle crashes and vehicle fires after learning Perrysburg Township bills for such responses; estimates presented suggested roughly $77,000'$78,000 in annual revenue if implemented, but officials raised practical and legal hurdles.
Perrysburg's safety committee discussed a proposal to explore billing private motorists for certain fire-department responses after a Blade article reported Perrysburg Township's practice of billing for auto-accidents and vehicle fires.
Chief Bryce presented the committee with research about the township policy, saying township staff collect vehicle and occupant details on scene and sometimes bill residents and nonresidents; the township expects to treat resident bills more leniently. "They bill both their residents and non residents," Chief Bryce said in the meeting.
The discussion covered two central points: revenue potential and program logistics. Chief Bryce provided a rough revenue estimate based on Perrysburg's incidents: approximately $78,000 in 2023 and $77,000 in 2024 would have been collected if the city had billed for auto-accident responses and vehicle fires. He cautioned those figures are gross estimates and flagged administrative costs, including third-party billing fees that in some examples can run about 25% of collected revenue.
Committee members and staff raised operational concerns. Collecting billing information at scenes requires additional time on scene to record insurance, occupant and vehicle data, and staff said that would lengthen scene times and could reduce apparatus availability. Chief Bryce said that collecting the information consistently could add five to seven minutes to on-scene time in some cases and that sharing law-enforcement-collected data raises privacy and operational questions: "Sometimes the law enforcement has the copy of the driver's license ... and they don't want to share it," he said.
Hazmat cost recovery already occurs through the county Emergency Management Agency (EMA) and, in some incidents, via the spiller. Chief Bryce said that some large incidents have resulted in successful cost recovery through EMA billing procedures.
The committee discussed legal and practical precedents. Perrysburg Township's ordinance was described as using FEMA-based pricing guidelines (vehicle fire and personnel hourly rates) as the basis for per-call charging. Committee members urged caution: billing laws and insurance company practices vary, and resident optics can be politically sensitive when people who did not request a response later receive a bill.
Chief Bryce summarized the trade-offs: "I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze," he said, urging the committee to weigh expected revenue against extra scene time, billing costs and staff workload. Members agreed to continue exploring options and asked staff to gather more information before recommending policy changes.
Ending: Staff will continue to evaluate feasibility, client protection measures and potential revenue net of billing costs; no formal billing program was approved during the meeting.
