Outsiders must pay up

If you do not live in the City of Milton an accident can prove to be quite costly.

Tuesday night the Milton City Council passed an ordinance, which would establish a police and emergency service response user fee for responding to accidents by a vote of 7-1.

The lone dissenting vote came from Councilwoman Pat Lunsford, who questioned Police Chief Brand about, “gouging the residents for money.”
According to the fees established, the police fee would be $235 per accident, while the fire/rescue fee would be set at $300 per accident. When this is billed each separate bill would include a $50 service charge, so an accident involving the police and fire response would equal $635.
When asked who would be responsible for this fee, city attorney Roy Andrews clarified the situation.

“The person who is deemed to be responsible for the accident would be billed and in most cases their insurance usually pays,” said Andrews. “We will have a special master established if a person disagrees with the charge or they were at fault with the accident.”

Currently Chief Greg Brand explained about 10 different cities in the state of Florida are using this method to help generate revenue to cover the expenses of a police department.

“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.”

The City of Gulf Breeze is joining Milton in establishing these fees for their area and both communities will be working together when it comes to billing and if all goes well they will offer these billing services to other communities establishing the same type of fees with each city splitting the profits.

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.”

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 council later voted 8-0 to appoint City Manager Donna Adams to represent the City of Milton on a board that would also consist of two Gulf Breeze representatives.

In other actions taken by the council, the second reading of a nepotism policy passed along with the first reading of ordinances involving parking violations in the city, a schedule of fees for land development regulation matters and to amend or simplify the city’s charter.