Starke County EMS Clerk Mary Lynn Ritchie presented her regular report to the Starke County Commissioners Monday night where she reported an increase in hospital transfers which makes up a large part of the department’s revenue. She said it will be interesting to see how revenues move forward as compared to last year.
She also asked the commissioners how they would like to move forward with the small claims process as the Starke County Sheriff’s Department began charging EMS $28.00 to serve a resident a small claims notice.
Starke County Sheriff’s Department Office Manager Pam McDonald explained to the commissioners she thought the processing service fee was already being charged to EMS. After looking into the issue, the McDonald said they found that the fee wasn’t being charged. The service fee is charged by the Starke County Sheriff’s Department to entities to offset costs of fuel, postage and time of the service. McDonald noted that the fee is placed into the retirement pension fund.
Clerk Bernadette Manuel explained that the fee could be added to the clerk’s fee in handling the small claim, which is $132.50.
Auditor Rachel Oesterreich said a line item will be included in the EMS budget to pay the service fee which would then be transferred to the pension fund.
The commissioners seemed to agree with that idea. Ritchie said she would like to check with the agent that assists EMS with collecting claims to see what it would be if small claims was eliminated and it would go straight to collections. However, the commissioners thought it would be best to continue working locally. Ritchie noted that she will look into it for informational purposes.
