In the near future, the City of Duluth could be charging you or your insurance company to extinguish a fire or investigate an accident.

City of Duluth Communications Manager, Jeff Papas says the idea for such a proposal pre-dates Mayor Don Ness' administration.

It's all part of the City trying to solve a four-and-a half million dollar deficit.

"You have to fix the budget and that is the priority," said Papas.

City of Duluth Communications Manager, Jeff Papas says Mayor Ness is proposing an ordinance to bill for certain types of emergency services.
Papas says these services would include fire suppression, vehicle extrication, and accident investigation by police.

"By statue, the City is allowed to bill for those services, but we've never had an ordinance in place that allowed our emergency services to actually have permission to do it," said Papas.

Papas says the ordinance is modeled loosely on city of Burnsville, where they charge 500-dollars for the those same civil services.

"Fees have not been set," Papas said. "The first thing that needs to happen is the council needs to pass an ordinance that would allow permission to bill in the first place."

But if the ordinance were to take effect...

"The homeowner or property's owner's insurance would receive the billing first, prior to any assessment or any billing being made against an individual property owner."

So how much of the $4.5 million deficit could the ordinance alleviate?

"Based on what some other cities have charged for services and the estimate is a ballpark of figure of 100-thousand dollars," said Papas.

Councilors say they have mixed reviews about the proposal.

"If there's someone out there that's using it four, six, eight times a year, yeah I think there's a right to charge something there , but there's a level at which, that's what we pay property taxes for," said Roger Reinert, Duluth City Council president.

The first reading on this proposed ordinance will occur at the upcoming City Council meeting on Monday.

Papas says that could occur during the July 24th council meeting, but he says extensive discussion on the issue is likely and that it could be postponed further.