BRYAN, Texas — Bryan and College Station have had an interlocal agreement between the two cities over Fire and EMS aid since 1997, and it's set to be wrapped up at the end of March.
The current agreement allows for both cities to respond to emergency situations automatically, regardless if the situation is in a separate city. However, the City of College Station has discussed potential reimbursements that would require a new agreement to be put in place.
“We don’t want them to come over and do this at a loss, we would just hope and ask respectfully that they don’t try and get rich off of their Station 6 location," said D.J. Capener, Assistant Chief for Bryan EMS.
In January, the City of College Station sent a 60-day termination notice to the City of Bryan for the current interlocal agreement. This means that both cities will have to agree on a new proposal, and if an agreement is not reached, each city would be responsible for providing assistance to their areas of the city.
In a statement to KAGS, the city clarified why they began moving towards a new agreement:
"About two years ago, the College Station Fire Department identified the need for an additional ambulance to handle our increased call volume. We sometimes did not have enough ambulances available to respond to calls. Before asking College Station taxpayers to fund another ambulance, we sought to ensure we operated as efficiently as possible.
For several years, we've responded to EMS calls in the City of Bryan disproportionate to the times their personnel respond in College Station. Over a year and a half ago, the cities' fire departments and city management began working on strategies to reduce the call volume discrepancy. While we've found ways to reduce the imbalance, in 2022, we still responded to EMS calls in Bryan (432) nearly four times more often than they responded in College Station (117). We continue to work in good faith with the City of Bryan to close that significant gap.
The increasing demands in our community and the call responses to our sister city have created the need for CSFD to put another ambulance into service, costing College Station taxpayers about $1.4 million, which includes roughly $850,000 in recurring annual expenses.
The City of College Station is reviewing the City of Bryan's proposed agreement we received on Tuesday. We remain committed to the health and safety of citizens of both communities and will continue to work with the City of Bryan to devise a fair and equitable plan to "true-up" the cost each year. Our city council will discuss the proposed agreement at its March 9 meeting."
The City of College Station's proposal would provide automatic aid in fire scenarios but mutual aid in EMS situations.
Automatic aid means that the nearest station would respond to the call made; whereas, mutual aid would mean the corresponding city would respond and request the sister city's assistance if needed.
On Thursday, the Bryan City Council heard from the Bryan Fire Department on what proposal they believe should be recommend to College Station.
“They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too in my opinion with the automatic aid for fire and mutual aid for EMS," said Jared Salvato, Bryan councilmember for Single Member District 3.
“We are not trying to be an undue burden on our sister city, we are happy to provide some compensation to try and make them whole," said Marca Ewers-Shurtleff, Bryan councilmember for Single Member District 5.
Bryan city leaders approved the proposal to provide automatic aid in high acuity, life-threatening situations which they classified as DELTA and ECHO scenarios, while mutual aid would be provided to low-acuity calls which are classified as OMEGA, ALPHA, BRAVO, and CHARLIE situations.
The distinction is separate from College Station's, in that it makes the classification of threat to life as opposed to fire and EMS. Now, the City of College Station will have to decide if they agree to the City of Bryan's terms.
The current agreement will expire on March 10, 2023.