Council votes to invoke non-contract fees for fire, ambulance holdouts

by Michael Mattison
The Winthrop City Council voted to charge non-contract fees to the townships that have not yet signed the ambulance and fire contracts with the City of Winthrop
Two townships have yet to sign the contracts and the City Council voted to issue those township non-contract fee rates. Those townships will not be responsible for paying the annual dues charged to the other townships and the City of Gibbon.
It does mean there will be an increase in fees for ambulance and fire calls. Fire calls will be charged at a rate of $4,000 per hour, up from $1,000 per hour per the contract rate.
Ambulance will increase to $3,000 per call, up from $1,000. This fee would be billed to the individual requiring the call and not the township.
City Adminstrator Michael Looft said the City has requested that the contracts be signed by May 1.
Looft said that the contact presented to the townships was the same as those signed in 2002 and 2007 with the excepton of the pricing. It went from the 1990s pricing to a competative rate matching or below what other townships are being charged.
Looft said the annual fees get the ambulance and fire through the first part of the year before tax revenue comes in. This helps pay for things like supplies and equipment, allowing for some flexability.
“It is important for us to know, to budget for the coming year, if they are going to be signing the agreement and contributing at a level we can budget for,” said Mayor Julie Trebelhorn. “It’s inherantly unfair for the taxpayers of Winthrop to have to subsidize the service when it goes out to the townships.”
Looft said that this problem is increasingly being seen across the State of Minnesota.
In other business, the Council was informed that Gaylord Sanitation would be increasing its fuel surcharge from 25 cents to cents to $1.25 due to the rising cost of fuel.
Looft said that the garbage fund is sitting fine and that there will be no need to increase the rates to citizens.