After a $1 million item in the city’s budget caused a stir earlier this year among the region’s volunteer rescue staff and taxpayers over whether a city ambulance service was even necessary, city officials instead said the money would be spent on “system-wide improvements.” Officials also pushed for the contents of a regional fire and rescue system study to get released, pronto. Now it’s looking like the city may get its own ambulance after all.
The study, commissioned last September, was released April 27 [a PDF of the study is available for download here]. It recommends that the region’s fire and rescue systems (which include the Charlottesville Fire Department, the Albemarle County Fire and Rescue Department and the volunteer Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad) should not consolidate, since resulting costs would actually be higher—an additional $515,000 per year in operating funds.
Helpfully, the report urges that the systems should “continue to work together.” But it also provides dozens of recommendations, including, yep, an ambulance for the Charlottesville Fire Department, at an estimated cost of $933,727.
The report recommends new county rescue locations on Route 250 at Pantops and Ivy, at a cost of $480,000 for each station.
Since the city’s ambulance item caused such a stir, the report’s findings about emergency services and taxes are of interest. At .182 per $100, city residents pay 340 percent more for emergency services than county residents. The city’s retirement plan is also “considerably more expensive” and its employees get more holiday leave. If consolidation occurred, county residents would be bumped up to city levels, contributing to increased costs.
One more reason we’re not likely to see a unified system anytime soon: The study calls for the elimination of one fire chief position if the county and city departments were joined together, prompting ugly thoughts of an impending Dan Eggleston v. Charles Werner “Who Wants to Remain Fire Chief?” hose-handling match.
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