The Bryan city council offers to pay the city of College Station some of the cost of CSFD ambulances crossing city limits.
That proposal in on the agenda for Thursday’s College Station city council meeting.
College Station staff is recommending what the agenda says is “continued collaboration and negotiation”.
According to the proposed contract, the Bryan council is offering to pay College Station $240 dollars per call when College Station ambulances cross the city limits. BFD assistant chief D.J. Capener referred to $240 per hour in speaking to the council during a March 2 special meeting.
Friday, March 10 begins a termination notice for automatic response to all ambulance and fire calls. The College Station city council made that decision last November and was followed by a notice the city manager sent to the Bryan city council in January.
Click below to hear some of the comments from the March 2, 2023 special meeting of the Bryan city council.
News release from the city of College Station following the March 2, 2023 Bryan city council meeting:
“About two years ago, the College Station Fire Department identified the need for an additional ambulance to handle our increased call volume. We sometimes did not have enough ambulances available to respond to calls. Before asking College Station taxpayers to fund another ambulance, we sought to ensure we operated as efficiently as possible.
For several years, we’ve responded to EMS calls in the City of Bryan disproportionate to the times their personnel respond in College Station. Over a year and a half ago, the cities’ fire departments and city management began working on strategies to reduce the call volume discrepancy. While we’ve found ways to reduce the imbalance, in 2022, we still responded to EMS calls in Bryan (432) nearly four times more often than they responded in College Station (117). We continue to work in good faith with the City of Bryan to close that significant gap.
The increasing demands in our community and the call responses to our sister city have created the need for CSFD to put another ambulance into service, costing College Station taxpayers about $1.4 million, which includes roughly $850,000 in recurring annual expenses.
The City of College Station is reviewing the City of Bryan’s proposed agreement we received on Tuesday. We remain committed to the health and safety of citizens of both communities and will continue to work with the City of Bryan to devise a fair and equitable plan to “true-up” the cost each year. Our city council will discuss the proposed agreement at its March 9 meeting.”