The Contra Costa County Fire Protection District (District) strives to provide timely and efficient first responder emergency medical services (EMS) to residents and businesses located within the District, and to persons that visit, do business in, or travel through the District's jurisdiction. The spectrum of EMS responses encompasses an emergency response to a single family home for a person suffering from a medical condition, a vehicle accident requiring patient extrication, a complex technical rescue of a person on a remote hillside, a mass casualty incident involving many patients needing immediate care, and more. To successfully carry out our EMS mission, the District must provide and maintain modern equipment, apparatus, and sufficiently trained and licensed personnel. These are necessary components for the protection of the public health, safety, and the welfare of District residents, businesses, and visitors. The District responds to a high volume of EMS incidents which cause a significant impact on the finances and operations of the District. The District finances its emergency, rescue, and fire response services with general purpose revenues. The District's receives general purpose revenue from a portion of ad valorem property taxes. The District has experienced reductions and significant fluctuations in funding along with increased costs and increased demands for services. The District's general purpose revenues are inadequate to meet the costs of providing fire protection services, emergency medical and rescue services, and hazardous materials emergency response services.  
  
On December 9, 2014, the District's Board of Directors adopted Ordinance No. 2014-19 to establish a fee to recover the costs of providing EMS responses as authorized by the California Health & Safety Code. These costs include the District's actual personnel, equipment, and apparatus costs, as well as the cost of supplies, administration, and emergency medical dispatch. Since the ordinace was adopted, the District's costs to provide emergency medical fire-responder services have increased. Ordinance No. 2019-08 will increase the District's fee to ensure the District is recovering the actual costs of providing emergency response services.  
  
Exhibit A to the ordinance depicts how the District calculated its costs for responding to an emergency medical incident. The fee for each emergency will be calculated based on the actual hourly and per-unit costs that the District incurs to respond to the emergency. The administrative rate used is based on California's reimbursement for emergency incident response. District staff have determined that our actual costs exceed this 10% rate.

Without adoption of Ordinance 2019-08, the Fire District will not be able to recover the increased costs of responding to, and providing services for, emergency medical incidents.

Approximately 10% of emergency medical service responses involve children under the age of 15.