Accident fees soon to be no more

The Florida Legislature has nixed the ideas of cities charging fees for cost relating to responder services by cities or counties.

As of July 1, cities like Milton will no longer be able to charge for accidents caused by non-residents within city limits.
The charge of the effort to stop cities from doing this was led by Janet Mabry of Gulf Breeze, who opposed the action in her town along with insurance companies and their lobbying efforts.

Mabry also happens to be a lobbyist representing clients like Gulf Stream Racetrack, the Florida Association of Childcare Workers, Florida Justice Association, American Locksmith, and the Florida State Massage Therapy Association.
Mayor Guy Thompson was not surprised by the legislatures action.

“I expected this,” said Thompson. “Our accident fees did not pan out the way I intended them to, to begin with.
“It was not my intent for the people to pull money out of their pockets and we never had the system setup the way I had intended for it to be.”

Originally the city of Milton pass the ordinance to collect these fees just over a year ago by a vote of 7-1, with Councilwoman Pat Lunsford casting the lone dissenting vote.

Lunsford question Milton Police Chief Greg Brand about, “gouging the residents for Money.”

When originally passed the city was seeking $635 for an accident involving police and fire response plus a $50 service charge.

When the ordinance was passed Chief Brand was completely for the measure,

“I see it as recovering cost from non-city residents,” said Brand. “Fire services have been doing this for a long time and police departments have started waking up the last couple of years.”

Brand noted in his analysis of 22 random accidents, officers spent roughly an hour and a half at the scene and that does not include the time dispatch is handling the incident or the officer filling out the accident report and the records clerk filing it at the police station.

The 22 crashes used in the sample represented only a small percent of all the traffic accidents the Milton Police Department responded to.

City Fire Chief John Rebel noted his department responded to 122 calls and their average time on the scene was 25 minutes, which did not include the time needed to service the vehicle and to re-supply equipment after the call.

“When we go to the scene we are responsible for fluid, debris, injuries or entrapment,” said Rebel. “In our calculations we didn’t even take into account small equipment and consumable supplies, but we feel the $300 per call is a reasonable rate.

“As we broke down the cost for our trucks, personnel and such, it came to an average cost of $301.64.”

From May when the ordinance passed to September of 2008, the last official number available, the city of Milton, billed $10,170 and only collected $4,635, while the city of Gulf Breeze has billed $6,140 and collected $4,940.

Mayor Thompson pointed out the fees would not be charged to residents and taxpayers in the City of Milton.
“This is no different than a user fee,” said Thompson.

It was stressed the fee only applies to traffic accidents and when the person at fault in the accident is not a city taxpayer.
“The original concept was to help defray the cost,” said Thompson. “I think it is unfair to the taxpayers to shoulder the cost and this was one way to help relieve the burden.”

Impetus for the state law grew when legislators were made aware of third-party collection vendors encouraging the fee-charging process by soliciting counties and cities for the collection of these accident response fees for a percentage of the recovery, according to Florida Senate brief 2009-303 on the issue.

The cities of Milton and Gulf Breeze entered into a join agreement to form their own billing and collection group for these fees.

Originally he city of Milton approved the PESR fees totaling $635. The $265 Gulf Breeze fee includes both police and fire and handling fees. Later the City of Milton reduced their fee to $285 as they eliminated the fee for the fire department’s response.

Some cities in the state to also be effected are Starke, Chiefland, Belleview, Lotte, Live Oak, Chipley, Longwood, Port Richey, and Ocala.


Before Milton and Gulf Breeze implemented these fees, the Midway Fire District implemented a similar fee system three years ago when responding to accidents in their district.

“We did this two years ago based on the Florida statues,” said former Midway Fire Chief Stephen Demeter. “Our only funding comes from those who pay property tax in the district, so we looked at using the fees we could charge for responding to motor vehicle crashes.”

A minimum fee for Midway is $500, but the fee could increase to $700 or $1,200 depending on the injuries, if there is extrication involved or other work the department has to do. The Holley-Navarre Fire District bases their fees on a cafeteria plan where each service rendered has a specific cost.

Midway has had some success at collecting their fees as 60-percent of the insurance companies billed will pay the fee.

“It is included in most peoples insurance,” said Demeter. “They don’t like paying it, but we usually get it collected in 90 days after we respond to their requests for paper work and go back and forth a couple of times.

“But if we do not collect from the insurance company, then it will fall back on the driver.”

Midway and Holley-Navarre are independent fire districts and do not receive dollars from the Santa Rosa County budget.

“What he get from this fee is only a small part of our budget,” said Demeter. “But every little bit helps, especially with the cuts we are looking at based on Amendment.”

Cities throughout the state defended the purpose of the ordinance as a means to recover the cost of city-funded fire department and police force response to accidents within the city limits.

The Revenue Estimating Conference reported that an estimated $1.5 million in revenue statewide would be lost by local governments currently imposing the fee. Five states have already banned the fees including Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Indiana and Georgia.