Travis County Commissioners Court
September 5, 2006
Item 9
9. Consider and take appropriate action on recommendation regarding the fees currently charged to patients for star flight services. I thought this would be a good one just for a little public discussion. So maybe impacted in the future, we will know exactly what we did and why. And -- pete we will momentarily come back and pick up the fire ban. Outdoor burn ban item.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, pete baldwin, interim emergency services coordinator. We have brought before you a -- an agenda item to look at proposed fee increases for both the liftoff and for the loaded mile and we have visited with our e.m.s. Subcommittee regarding this and then have touched base with the other Commissioner's office regarding it. Bottom line is that we are still under any of our competitor's rates considerably and as we go through and look at this, we are also giving our Travis County that 50% break over out of county residents. We will bring this to you and be glad to answer any questions.
>> so there are three specific changes recommended, right?
>> yes.
>> can we just lay them out?
>> the proposed changes would raise the Travis County resident fee from 2,000 liftoff to 2500. There hasn't been a county resident fee change for several years. We did bring an out of county or non-Travis County resident fee change to you last year. Went from 4,000 to 4500. We will bring in another change, another 500 increase. The liftoff fee increase really is based upon the capabilities of the new aircraft, the nbg's, all of those things that we are putting in place. The services certainly increased with the acquisition of the helicopters, we think a change in those fees are appropriate. And then a $10 per loaded mile fee for both county and non-county residents. Again this is based upon the dramatic increase in fuel costs and -- and we think that those fees shouldoff set, you know, the increased fuel costs for the coming year.
>> did you tell us, if you know, what would be the closest competitor and give us, you know, a reasonable idea as to what they charge for those three? I mean just so we kind of -- do we have a -- an idea? I know people don't like giving that information out so sometimes it's hard for you to get. But you -- take a stab at it. Not like I'm going to hold you to your numbers.
>> I would say as pete said, we would still remain very competitive, probably still be toward the bottom end in the state. If you asked me intuitively I will tell you there's probably privates charging anywhere from 7500 to 8500 liftoff and $75 a loaded mile. They are in it to make a profit and -- but I did do a survey of all of the programs in Texas, I got one response from a program in corpus and I think they were at 5700 liftoff. They weren't county based, so they really didn't have a difference between county residents and non-county residents. That puts us in the ballpark for our non-Travis County residents.
>> did we touch base with our customers about the recommended increases?
>> as far as like the patients?
>> with this impact only individuals?
>> yes.
>> okay. Questions? Move approval?
>> second.
>> any discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 5, 2006 4:29 PM