Res 1978-055 - Laserfiche WebLink

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f r\ I I 4a REPORT' OF THE SlJBCO'1MI'ITEE ON CITY-<XJIJNl'Y RELATIONS Mayor Cavazos appointed himself, Councilrran James and Councilrran Hyatt to begin working on a process for improved cooperation with Hays County and to make reccmnendations on hCM the City Council should address the problem of the vast number of services provided to persons living outside of the City. The subcarmittee has met several times and has directed a report to be developed on these items. The subccmnittee has reviewed that report and has selected several items to use as a discussion point with the Hays County Ccmnissioners Court. 'Ihese include: 1. The City taxpayers bear a burden of $100 ,000 every year to provide fire service to areas outside of the City. It is the subcarmittee' s pre- ference to continue this service if the County is willing to participate significantly in sane of the costs involved. While $100 ,000 would not be saved by discontinuing the service, significant advantages would accrue to the City taxpayers, if the City fire department no longer went outside of the City limits. This option exists, but in preference to it, the sub- oorrmittee has outlined four possible options, if the County desires to pro- vide protection outside of the City limits. A. The County could agree under contract with the City to reimburse the City for all calls outside of the City at a rate of $l75 per call. Based upon the calls last year, this would arrount. to about $25,550. B. 'I'he Count.y and City could agree that the County would reimburse the City for a percentage of the persormel costs based upon the percent of calls outside of the City. Last year, 28% of the calls were outside of the City and a total of $319,000 was budgeted for personnel only in the fire department. (This includes a portion of the dispatcher' s and Director of Public Safet.y's salary) .' The cost would be about $89,320. C. The City and Count.y could agree that the County would reimburse the City for a percentage of the entire fire department budget ($368,927) based upon the past four years average of calls out- side the City (25.4%). This would arrount. to $93,000. D. The County could agree to reimburse the City for the salary and benefits for one firefighter off of each shift. This would arrount to about $32,000. 2. The City and County nCM jointly fund the Hays Manorial Hospital to operate the ambulance service. It is the opinion of the subccmnittee that the two entities should no longer contract for the service in this fashion. The ernrnittee would prefer that the County take over all responsibility for ambulance operations in whatever fashion they see fit. (The present service is considered to be good and it is not the recan- mendation of the Crnrnittee that Hays Marorial Hospital nOTonger be involved.) If the City is required to take over the service, it would