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Council accepts volunteer fire department assets, approves emergency billing agreement and mitigation fees program
Summary
Council voted to accept vehicles, equipment and property from the Josephine Volunteer Fire Department, approved a service agreement with Fire Recovery USA for incident billing and adopted an ordinance to establish mitigation rates for emergency responses.
The council accepted a donation of vehicles, equipment and real property (including the station at 201 W. Hubbard) from the Josephine Volunteer Fire Department as the city begins a phased conversion of volunteer services into city operations.
City staff collected and inventoried capital assets and confirmed the transfer with the volunteer board. Chief McCarty and staff said they are processing volunteer applications for city employment and expect a phased transition while continuing to fund the department in the interim.
Council also approved a service agreement with Fire Recovery USA (a third-party billing vendor) to pursue insurance recoveries for accidents and certain emergency incidents. Under the current terms discussed, the city would receive about 78% of collected payments after processing and credit-card fees; staff said they may shop the service and negotiate terms or run a competitive process in the future.
Finally, council adopted an ordinance to implement mitigation (billing) rates for emergency and nonemergency deployments; staff said rates will be reassessed as the service model changes and as any emergency services district (ESD) or other funding changes occur.
Council members said they will work with staff to ensure policies protect residents from undue collections and to avoid aggressive individual billing; the vendor agreement includes language that collection actions will require city approval.
