Repeated fire code violations will be costly after city revises inspection fee schedule

City commissioners voted unanimously to revise the Great Falls Fire Rescue fee schedule for repeated fire code violations during this week's meeting.

Before this vote, Great Falls Fire Rescue did not charge fees to cover the staff time required when they have to make multiple attempts to get a building into compliance with the city code, according to the agenda packet.

A reinspection for the department to follow up is typical within 30 days of the department’s first inspection. There will be no additional fee at this time. If after a second reinspection, typically 30 days later and the third time the department is at the building for the same violation, then a fee of $200 will be charged by the department.

If after a third reinspection, typically 15 days later, no progress has occurred then there will be a $300 fee. After the fourth reinspection, another 15 days later, if there is no progress made towards getting code compliant, then the business will be turned over to the city.

Another 15 days later the City Attorney’s Office would be able to, under city code, issue a misdemeanor charge, which could mean six months in jail or a fine of up to $500, or both.

Stiffer fees, penalties aimed at intentional ‘bad actor’ violators, commissioners say

“From the date of the first notification of the fire code violation/violations, the process to correct the fire code violation/violations could take upwards to 6 months or more,” the agenda report reads.

During the meeting, Commissioner Joe McKenney wanted to ensure that these fees and penalties would be applied to “bad actors” who are purposefully not fixing the code violation and not towards people who may have been none-the-wiser or otherwise overwhelmed by the demands of entrepreneurship.

Fire Marshal Mike McIntosh assured McKenney that was correct and that GFFR would be working with people who are making an effort to become code compliant.

“When my office and the fire department goes out and does the annual inspections, we're not going out looking to issue violations for everything that we find,” McIntosh said. “We spend most of our time going out and actually educating the public and building relationships with the business owners that are there.”

McIntosh said he also realizes that there are some issues out of a business owner’s control that could impact their ability to be in compliance, like supply chain issues.

“The purpose of this is if we walk in a door and somebody who's just flat out refusing to do something and they haven't made any movement, haven't acknowledged anything, haven't even attempted to correct the life safety violation that's there. We now have the availability to issue a fee to try to get them to come into compliance,” McIntosh said.

New fee schedule

The fee structure timeline is now as follows, as outlined in the agenda report:

• First inspection is covered by the cost of the issuance or renewal of the Safety Inspection Certificate (SIC)

• First reinspection is covered by the cost of the issuance or renewal of the SIC

• Second reinspection is a $200 fee charged by GFFR

• Third reinspection is a $300 fee charged by GFFR

• Fourth reinspection, if fire code violation is not corrected, the business is turned over to the city

• City Attorney’s Office to pursue the language of 15.9.050 of the City Code

Commission also looks to recover EMS transport losses

During the work session, Deputy Chief of GFFR’s Emergency Medical Services Jeremy Virts also proposed to the commission a way to recover the financial loss currently incurred through ambulance transportation.

Virts explained that as of right now there is no way for GFFR to recover the costs associated with EMS transport, and it is absorbed by the department. EMS takes up the majority of the department’s mission, Virts said.

City Manager Greg Doyon explained that EMS is typically contracted out to Great Falls Emergency Services and that GFES bills consumers for its services. However, if GFES is out of ambulances in an emergency, then GFFR goes to the scene, but GFFR doesn’t have a mechanism to recoup the costs associated with those trips.

Virts’ presented data showing that patient transports increased significantly in recent years. In 2015, GFFR completed five ambulance transports. In 2021, the department completed 74.

GFFR is requesting to hire a third party contractor, Pintler Billing & Administrative Services, to help with the administrative work and that would have expertise in Medicare, Medicaid and Insurance. Virts said that this company was recommended to the department and that it services 41 other clients in the state.

“There's a lot of math that goes into this once they submit the medical coding,” Virts said. “They crunch some other numbers and then spit out an ultimate final bill.”

Virts explained that the minimum paid to the company would be $6,000/year or a determined number of transports. He said the numbers might be negotiable but likely not by a lot.

City Commissioner Rick Tryon asked why the commission hadn’t done this before, to which Doyon said that the current increased volume GFFR is seeing makes the argument that it's necessary.

Virts explained the bill will go to the consumer, that depending on insurance or Medicaid coverage, the out-of-pocket requirement would likely be around 20% depending on insurance coverage. He said supplemental insurance would pick up that 20%.

He said that the financial plan setup could allow for a grace period.

Doyon said that he’s seen other companies and communities approve write-offs at the end of the year if people can’t afford to pay.

Mayor Bob Kelly said he wanted to see a cash flow chart for the fees to get a visual on how the funds would ultimately reimburse the department.

Doyon said his recommendation to the commission would be to set up a separate EMS fund to cover the expenses and training and other things over time.

“I would love to pursue this further if we can get a cost recovery without charging people more money for using a city service they are already paying for and you guys can get some cost recovery, I'm definitely interested in hearing more,” Tryon said.

The city will likely discuss this further in future meetings.

This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: City Commission votes to revise Fire Dept. inspection fee schedule