MOSES LAKE — An ordinance revision approved by the Moses Lake City Council will allow more consistent billing of insurance companies in cases of emergency response by the Moses Lake Fire Department. In certain circumstances, property owners or vehicle owners may be responsible for paying whatever emergency response costs are not covered by insurance. The revisions passed on a 6-1 council vote Tuesday, with council member Victor Lombardi voting no.  

Moses Lake Fire Chief Art Perillo said the revisions will clarify city policy and make it more consistent.  

“A lot of (the previous ordinance) is at the discretion of the fire chief,” Perillo said in a later interview. “The amendment to that ordinance actually makes it a little bit more clear, and it’s what is recognized by insurance companies as things that could be reimbursable.” 

The previous ordinance gave city officials the option of submitting reimbursable expenses to an insurance company, Perillo said, but on a case-by-case basis. Whether or not to submit the bill was up to the MLFD chief or a third-party biller, and Perillo said he thought that was too subjective. Originally the fees were only for motor vehicle accidents and hazardous materials spills, but the revisions extend that to other emergency and non-emergency services. City officials haven’t exercised the option to charge fees in recent years, he said.  

“There was a period of time where the department did pursue those cost recovery opportunities, and for some reason that just went away,” Perillo said.  

Steve Crapson of Steve Crapson Insurance, Moses Lake, said most homeowner policies include a provision for reimbursing the emergency response agency, or the option to add that to the policy. Homeowners should check their policy to see what the limit is, he said. The property owner or vehicle owner may be responsible for fees not covered by the insurance, Crapson said. 

Separate fees are charged for vehicle collisions, hazardous materials mitigation, fires, water incidents and special rescues. There’s also a fee for calls to extended care facilities that need help lifting a patient. 

“This one is particularly important. Often times what we’re finding is that facilities that are paid to take care of somebody aren’t necessarily doing that, and they’re calling the fire department to come out as a pass-on the liability to someone else,” Perillo told council members. “We’ll go out there and help them, no problem, but when (the patient) is 120 pounds and they’ve got 15 staff, they can lift that person on their own. They're calling us out to transfer the liability to us.” 

Those calls make it more difficult to respond to other incidents, he said, and the city needs some compensation. 

In that case, the fee would be charged to the facility, Perillo said.  

The schedule includes different levels of fees for vehicle collisions, hazardous materials and water incidents. In the case of an illegal fire, the person responsible for starting the fire would be responsible for the expense. 

The fire department did an analysis of the available data from 2022-25, which shows MLFD was summoned most often for vehicle accidents and illegal fires in that time frame. Other kinds of fires were the third leading cause. 

Mayor Dustin Swartz asked about illegal fires in cases where the landowner didn’t start it. Perillo said city officials would contact the property owner’s insurance company first.  

“The idea behind this is to not necessarily to (charge the) fee the taxpayer, but to collect what they’re already paying into their insurance company.” Perillo said.  

Lombardi said those fires have the potential to get out of control – and have.  

“We’ve had cases where 60 acres got torched.” Lombardi said.  

Perillo said the most important factor is whether or not a fire required a MLFD response. 

“Something like that, that would tie up our resources, we would try to get some cost recovery from an insurance company,” Perillo said.  

Lombardi said fires started without the knowledge of the property owners is a problem, and for that reason he voted against the revision. 

    The Moses Lake Fire Department will start trying to get reimbursed for some allowable costs when it responds to emergency incidents.