Aberdeen EMS rate to increase from $34 to $68 April 1

Published 1:30 am Friday, March 13, 2026

At Wednesday’s regular meeting, the Aberdeen City Council voted 7-3 to essentially double the Emergency Medical Service rate paid by residents, despite what former councilor Kacey Ann Morrison described in a Facebook post as “tremendous public backlash.”

Deb Wilson, Jerry Rajcich, Scott Prato, Kevin Moynihan, Carrie Hubbard, Joshua Francy and Sydney Swor voted “yes,” Melvin Taylor, Michele Nipper and John Shaw voted “no,” while David Gakin and Deb Hodgkin were absent.

Last November, the council voted to adopt an EMS rate increase from $34.11 to $67.54. That new rate was to go into effect Jan. 1, 2026, and would have been reflected in February utility bills, however, a procedural error was discovered — a public hearing is required before any vote on a utility measure. The rate was subsequently repealed and March 11 was set as the date for the public hearing.

“We were alerted by a resident that the RCW had changed, and that the city wasn’t following the protocol,” said Ruth Clemens, Aberdeen city administrator, in January. “Moving forward, we now know the proper steps in order to pass the rate. That was the cause of the repeal. The repeal was simply to go through the process. The way that it’s stated in our municipal code is that we need a resolution. A utility would require a public hearing. We still pass it through a resolution, but we have to have the public hearing component.”

A cost of service study completed in 2024 found the current fee does not fully cover the cost of providing advanced life support and ambulance standby for the community. EMS is a part and function of the Aberdeen Fire Department and provides emergency medical services including 911 ambulance response, transport, some treatment and release on scene, triage and mass casualty.

“The (city) councils throughout these rate studies either didn’t follow the recommendations and went with something different or did no increase at all,” Aberdeen Fire Chief Dave Golding said back in November. “The increases that have been done to the EMS rate over the years have been very sporadic.”

The city formed a utility rate committee composed of residents to further study the issue and formulate recommendations for the city council to consider, and that committee recommended a new rate of $67.54, which the council approved before the discovery of the procedural error. The city has been paying a $2 million subsidy annually to the Fire Department for EMS to cover the gap in funding due to the insufficient utility rate.

At the Feb. 25 meeting, new Ward 6 Councilor John Shaw stumped for a city council workshop to be held after the public hearing and before a council vote, but his motion was defeated.

According to Golding, if you are a resident of Aberdeen and place an emergency call and an ambulance is dispatched, you will never see a bill for that response or transport to a medical facility.

“The way the utility is set up is as a resident of the city of Aberdeen and you are a utility rate payer, you call 911, we will respond to your home,” Golding said. “And if we transport you, we will bill your insurance. And anything insurance does not cover, we write off for the resident. And that is based on them paying the utility rate. A non-resident, we will bill insurance and then bill you the difference.”

Approximately 70% of EMS patients are Medicare and Medicaid recipients. The city receives a very low reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid which forces the city to pay for the cost out of funds that are used to pay for police, parks, code enforcement, municipal court and other critical services. By adjusting the rate, the city can continue to fund the EMS program without major impacts to operations, availability or other critical programs.

The rate adjustment takes effect on April 1, with subsequent increases the next two years: Jan. 1, 2027: $69.56 and Jan. 1, 2028: $71.65.