Bradley Seeks Increase in Ambulance Charges : Fire Department: Mayor hopes fees will offset cutbacks, allowing full level of services during holidays and other high-risk periods.

Mayor Tom Bradley on Tuesday proposed to increase city ambulance-user fees as part of an effort to keep the budget-strapped Fire Department fully operational during holidays and other periods of high fire danger.

“In a few days, I shall be submitting to the council recommendations to adjust some existing emergency medical fees in order to make more revenue available to offset the costs to the Fire Department,” Bradley said in a letter mailed to City Council members Tuesday. “I believe it is prudent . . . to allow the department to be fully staffed on those occasions which historically have presented a higher fire danger.”

Facing a 10% budget cut, the department plans to reduce emergency services by removing 13 engine and truck companies and six paramedic ambulances from its daily firefighting force beginning July 1--traditionally one of its busiest periods of the year.

The reductions, scheduled to occur on a rotating basis at 46 fire stations across the city, could result in delayed response times and more destructive fires, department officials have warned.

The mayor’s proposal would provide the department, which is losing $23.4 million, with additional funds by raising city ambulance-user fees. The fees are $5.04 per mile up to a maximum $113.76 for transporting one person to a hospital, Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler said.

Chandler said, however, that he did not know how much of an increase would be needed to cover the department’s expenses.

Fire Department spokesman John Badgett welcomed the proposal as a positive sign.

“The Fire Department is anxious to find a way not to have to implement these (reductions), but with the budget cuts remaining in place that is the best option available to us,” Badgett said.

Despite Fire Department predictions of life-threatening delays resulting from the forced cutbacks, Bradley noted in the letter that “while the reduction was dictated by our revenue shortfall,” it was the department that recommended the plan to achieve it.

“The department assured both me and the City Council that its 10% reduction plan, while stretching the capabilities of the department . . . would not place the lives of any of our citizens at serious risk,” the mayor wrote.

The Bradley proposal received mixed reviews from council members, particularly because the city budgets about $30 million a year for paramedic ambulance services, but receives only about $6 million in fees. Most wanted to weigh the economic consequences after the mayor outlines a more definite proposal.

Critics, some of them from within the ranks of the 2,742-member department, have blasted the reduction plan, which would begin on the July 4 weekend in Eastside and South-Central area communities that are often troubled by fireworks-related fires and random gunfire over the holiday.

For this reason, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky introduced a motion, scheduled to go before the council on Friday, delaying the reductions until after the holiday.