EL CENTRO — A new proposed fee of $250 will soon be charged on every emergency medical service call dispatched by the Imperial County Fire Department as a result of some overdue updates to the California Fire Code fee schedule, something that future EMS patients will have to be aware of as the county looks to bridge a financial gap in its current budget.

The Imperial County Fire Department user fee schedule was brought to the Imperial County Board of Supervisors meeting on April 23 by Fire Chief David Lantzer, who presented information during a public hearing regarding changes that will soon be implemented across the county.

Although the adjustments to the various fees submitted by the fire chief were an overlooked routine change, there was no mistaking that the department could use the enhanced revenue. “We’re always looking for funding,” Lantzer said in an interview on Friday, April 26.

The most significant change to Imperial County Fire Department policies is the EMS incident fee. The Wohlford Consulting study “proposed a suggested amount up to $400 per call, and after looking it over, we want to make sure it’s an appropriate fee, but we went on the lower end, with $250,” Lantzer explained to the county board during his presentation.

He said the other proposed changes to fees are significantly less costly for residents. “Most of the other fees have to do with fire prevention, such as plans review, inspections, permits. Other funding comes from review of construction, redevelopment of existing buildings, those types of things,” the fire chief said at the county board meeting.

The changes were preliminarily approved by the board for implementation. 

By the third quarter of this year, or July, the changes should take effect — although, it could happen sooner if a billing company is found and approved by the county board faster.

The Wohlford Consulting study projected some $724,845 in total annual projected revenue based off of the new adjustments. “In additional revenue, it’s estimated that we would recover 25 percent of the medical/EMS calls and 50 percent of the fire prevention/permit side for other fees,” Lantzer said on April 23.

The new study showed that if the full sum of costs were collected, the county could bring in $2,17 million as additional revenue. The total includes revised user fees of $724,689 annually, and $1,45 million in EMS calls for first responders at a rate of $250 per incident, for nearly 5,800 EMS calls a year, countywide. 

Why Charge Now?

The current changes to the various fees proposed began when on June 14, 2022, the Board of Supervisors approved and adopted a user fee report taken on May 13, 2022 from Wohlford Consulting, which is what was referred to for the new adoptions. Before the 2022 data, previous adjustments hadn’t taken place for the county since 2007. 

Where a majority of the fees were already in place, and now simply updated, there is no fee currently for EMS services provided by the county, so the implementation of a new fee is projected to bring a significant amount of revenue to the county based on the 2022 study done by Wohlford Consulting, which Lantzer was referring to for guidance. Changes to the county services hadn’t been looked at previously since 2007, leaving substantial room for inflation to have obvious gaps in the operating budget.

Lantzer presented the study findings to the board on April 23. “There are 31 existing fees revised upward, six existing revised down, and a number of new fees that we had never charged for, they were in place but for some reason we never charged. And the last time we did the fee study was 2007, so there was a lot of things that we weren’t catching, that we’re trying to implement these things that we missed in the past,” Lantzer said, giving an explanation for the list of adjustments.

Of the six that were reduced down, Lantzer shared in an interview on Friday that, “Since it’s been a while, today we are able to do some of the measures in a more medically efficient way, so the costs are lower, and those are improvements.”

Before making a decision to approve the changes, District 5 Supervisor John Hawk asked, “Do you think there are a lot of frivolous calls, do you see that that happens, because they are free currently?”

Lantzer confirmed that wasteful calls happen often and told the board, “That’s one of the rationales behind this decision for the county.”

The study reflected that realistically, the county won’t be able to obtain full return on any of the fees, but the adjustments are simply an overdue update that can help offset costs within the department. The county Fire Department has utilized both state- and federal-level grants, seeking to supplement their departmental needs as many avenues as possible in the past. Lantzer said that while the fee adjustments will hopefully help the county general funds grow, it won’t address the entire issue he is facing right now.

“Our challenge with operations and maintenance budgets is there are no grants for the day-to-day costs. Grants help build fire stations, and may help buy apparatus and other big projects, but just grants for day-to-day operations don’t really exist,” he explained on Friday, talking about the money details further.

“Our trucks are outdated, some are under right now, and we’re spread more thin,” he said of the current situation.

“There are three districts that we’ve assumed responsibility for over the last 10 years because their local fire departments closed and that’s Winterhaven, Ocotillo and Niland,” Lantzer added, which are an added stressor and responsibility for the first responders. 

He continued, “What if the truck breaks down in Palo Verde and the next closest truck is 72 miles away? This is the stuff that keeps me up at night.”

Lantzer said that the department struggles with overextended budgets as they cover the entire county with limited funds and resources, and these fees will help.

“This is consistent with the departments that were in consultation with the Wolford assessment …This is in the spirit of making sure that we have the appropriate fees in current time for the cost it brings to us (the county) to provide service,” County Executive Officer Miguel Figueroa said at the April 23 meeting, echoing some of Lantzer’s sentiments. 

There will be no discrimination from the county Fire Department for services, meaning that everyone will be charged for the services equally, regardless of citizenship, residency or insurance situation.

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