The Contra Costa County Fire Protection District ("Fire District") strives to provide timely and efficient emergency response for rescues, fire protection, and other services to residents and businesses located within the district, and to persons that visit, do business in, or travel through the Fire District's jurisdiction. Providing emergency response for rescues, fire protection, and other services, and maintaining modern equipment and sufficiently trained personnel, are necessary for the protection of the public health, safety, and welfare of Fire District residents, businesses, and visitors.
The Fire District responds to a high volume of emergency medical and rescue, fire, and hazardous materials related incidents which cause a significant impact on the finances and operations of the Fire District. Many of these calls for service relate to incidents caused, or contributed to, by a person's or business's negligence or violation of the law. These incidents may require a response of significant and substantial Fire District resources and personnel, leaving other areas of the Fire District with less-than-normal coverage, and imposing a significant burden on Fire District financial resources.
The Fire District finances its emergency, rescue, and fire response services with General Fund revenues. The Fire District's General Fund is comprised of revenues it is allocated from ad valorem property tax revenue. The Fire District has experienced ongoing reductions in funding and increased demands for services. The Fire District's revenues are inadequate to meet the costs of providing fire protection services, emergency medical and rescue services, and hazardous materials emergency response services. In order to continue to provide a high level of service throughout the Fire District's service area, the Fire District intends to recover its costs of providing emergency response services for these incidents that are caused by, or contributed to by, a person's or business's negligence or violation of the law.
The Fire District has reasonably calculated its costs for providing emergency response services. These costs include the Fire District's actual personnel, equipment, and apparatus costs, as well as the cost of supplies. Each charge under this ordinance will be calculated based on, and will not exceed, the Fire District's actual costs of providing emergency response services.
Exhibit A to the ordinance depicts how the Fire District calculated its hourly personnel costs. Exhibit B to the ordinance depicts how the Fire District calculated its hourly apparatus and vehicle costs. Exhibit C to the ordinance depicts how the Fire District calculated its other service and equipment costs. The fee for each emergency will be calculated based on the actual hourly and per-unit costs that the Fire District incurs to respond to the emergency.
Revenue from these fees will be used to cover the District's actual costs of responding to, and mitigating, incidents involving negligence or violations of the law.
Without adoption of Ordinance 2012-06, the Fire District will not be able to recover the costs of responding to, and mitigating, incidents involving negligence or violations of the law.
CLOSED the public hearing; ADOPTED Ordinance No. 2012-06, which authorizes the District to charge emergency response fees to recover its actual costs for responding to incidents that are caused or contributed to, by specified negligent or criminal actions, and adopts schedules of District costs used to calculate each emergency response fee.