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Committee grills staff after Medic One hike forces $156,831 increase to Benton Harbor’s ambulance costs; 0.8-mill option referred to Public Safety

Legislative Committee · April 1, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Officials were surprised after Medic One raised Benton Harbor’s annual payment from $100,133 to $256,964, a $156,831 increase; staff proposed a temporary ambulance millage of up to 0.8 mills (about $0.80 per $1,000 taxable value) to raise roughly $155,000 and referred the item to the Public Safety committee for more study.

City officials told the legislative committee that a recent Medic One rate recalculation would raise Benton Harbor’s annual ambulance payment from $100,133 to $256,964 — an increase of $156,831 — and that the city lacks budgeted funds to cover the jump. City Manager Little said he attended the Medic One meeting and was surprised by the size of the increase and the consultant’s chosen formula for distributing costs.

Little described the distributional impact across member municipalities and said some towns received reductions while…

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