Ordinance approved to allow Fire Department to recover service costs

By Randy Bell

The Clinton Fire Department may have found a way to generate more money for firefighter salaries. It will start billing insurance companies for “mitigation rates” to help cover the cost of services provided at house fires and traffic accidents when a policyholder is at fault.

The Board of Aldermen at its December 3 meeting approved an ordinance allowing the charges, and Fire Chief Jeff Blackledge intends to seek a contract with a company called Fire Recovery USA to handle the billing and collection of fees.

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“There are certain amounts that are charged, and it’s kind of the national average,” Blackledge says. “It has nothing to do with medical treatment. It’s all on trying to recover costs that we incur.”

Blackledge says the department uses a lot of absorbent material to clean up oil and fuel spills at the scene of car wrecks, and sometimes equipment is damaged at house fires and on other calls.

According to the chief, Fire Recovery USA has already provided an estimate of how much Clinton could expect to recover.

“I sent them our statistics for 2023, and they said that, potentially, we could have deposited close to $94,000 to the City’s account for our services that we have provided. That would be after they take their cut. They take twenty-two per cent right off the top for their services, and they write us a check for the balance.”

While the City’s intent is to have insurance companies pay the fees, the ordinance also specifies that, “In some circumstances, the responsible party(s) will be billed directly.”

But Blackledge says he hopes it won’t come to that.

“If someone doesn’t have insurance to pay for that, I don’t want to put them in the hole further [by charging them a mitigation fee].”

But he notes that many of the car wrecks the fire department works, particularly on I-20, involve people who aren’t Clinton residents.

“Most of those accidents out on the interstate are not citizens that help pay for our services [with their taxes],” the chief says. “They’re travelers.”

Mayor Phil Fisher makes it clear.

“The plans are to only bill the insurance companies,” he says. “Most people are already paying for this [coverage] in their insurance policy.”

But Fisher says some people may not realize they have it.

“I had no idea it was there in my policy.”

Blackledge was disappointed with the pay raises the aldermen approved for Clinton firefighters in the new fiscal year, and he says he wants to see the money that’s collected through the cost recovery program earmarked for his personnel.

“We’re hoping that it’ll go toward increasing the salaries, until we can get our salaries up to what the area level is. And, once get that established, if there’s extra [money], we’ll be able to use [it] for special projects.”