{"id":1694,"date":"2012-07-20T14:22:11","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T18:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=1694"},"modified":"2012-07-20T14:22:11","modified_gmt":"2012-07-20T18:22:11","slug":"commissioners-take-9-1-1-fee-proposal-off-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=1694","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners take 9-1-1 fee proposal off table"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plan to impose costs on municipalities met spirited criticism<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n
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By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/strong>,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The county commissioners announced yesterday that they will not advance a contentious proposal introduced in June to impose a cost-<\/p>\n

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Commissioners Kathi Cozzone (from left), Terence Farrell and Ryan Costello will not pursue a 9-1-1 cost-recovery plan proposed last month.<\/p><\/div>\n

recovery fee for emergency services on the county\u2019s 73 municipalities.<\/p>\n

The plan to defray about $2.6 million of the county\u2019s burgeoning 9-1-1 expenses with a per-capita tax of about $5.20 per resident generated sharp criticism from municipal officials, who packed a commissioners\u2019 meeting last month to express opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of feedback and correspondence with many municipalities, and numerous discussions with CCATO (Chester County Association of Township Officials) officials, borough representatives and first responders, the Chester County Commissioners have reviewed the proposed method of the municipality cost recovery plan, originally determined on a population basis, and have decided that this method for cost recovery will not be pursued,\u201d said a letter to municipalities from Mark Rupsis, the county\u2019s chief operating officer. \u201cNo further discussion or vote on this method of recovery will take place at next week\u2019s scheduled commissioners\u2019 sunshine and regular meetings (July 24 and 25).\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter said the county will continue to \u201cto review additional methods of municipality cost recovery for the investment being made in the many emergency services projects and the upgrading of major equipment \u2026 Any resulting proposal for cost recovery will be communicated to you and discussed in a future commissioners\u2019 sunshine meeting, prior to a vote at a commissioners\u2019 meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the proposal was introduced last month, the commissioners explained that from 1975 to 1993 the county collected a cost-recovery fee for emergency services, imposing a three-year moratorium in 1993 so that municipalities could purchase radios. The fee was never reinstated.<\/p>\n

The commissioners suggested that returning to such an arrangement represented a fair approach to reducing an inevitable county tax increase, especially because many municipalities show a surplus, according to state records. Many municipal leaders, who criticized the county\u2019s failure to give them adequate advance notice of the plan, countered that those funds have either already been spent or earmarked for critical capital needs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plan to impose costs on municipalities met spirited criticism By Kathleen Brady Shea,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times The county commissioners announced yesterday that they will not advance a contentious proposal introduced in June to impose a cost- recovery fee for emergency services on the county\u2019s 73 municipalities. The plan to defray about $2.6 million of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[551,331,394],"class_list":["post-1694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-551","tag-chester-county-commissioners","tag-emergency-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}