YORK – For quite some time, York County has had a contract with the City of York for the city to provide ambulance service to rural areas of the county where no ambulance service already exists.
The county pays the city for the services. In the past, it has been a specific lump sum, made in pre-scheduled payments. The fee has changed from time to time, by a percentage, to keep up with increases in costs.
Now, the service will be based on a formula that takes into account the actual number of ambulance calls that took place in a specific fiscal year, with the cost then paid at the end of that year.
York County Commissioner Chairman Daniel Grotz and Commissioner Randy Obermier met with York City Administrator Sue Crawford and York Fire Chief Tony Bestwick to discuss the new fee arrangement.
“We’ve come up with a formula taking into account the number of calls made to these rural areas and that formula did result in an increase of about $50,000 for this year,” Grotz said.
Obermier acknowledged that yes, this year there will be an increase (due to the amount of calls), but he also acknowledged “we will be paying our fair share for service in those areas. What we will be paying is based on the net cost. Yes, it will go up right now but it will probably fluctuate,” noting if the number of calls goes down, the cost will go down.
It was noted three fire districts are not taxed to pay for this service because they have their own ambulance services.
“While this is a new agreement for ambulance services, this really isn’t any different than our agreement with the city to share the costs of the 911 communications center,” Obermier pointed out.
All five commissioners voted in favor of accepting the agreement, which had earlier also been accepted by the York City Council.
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