Reading EMS Fees Would Rise Up to 55% Under New Ordinance

Reading City Council takes up an ordinance Monday, Nov. 9, that would raise what the city's Fire Department charges for an ambulance call starting Jan. 1, 2027: a Basic Life Support run would go from $865 to $1,094.35, and the most intensive Advanced Life Support run from $1,210 to $1,880.93, a 55 percent increase by our arithmetic, according to the regular meeting agenda (pp. 29-30). The ordinance is only being introduced Monday; the vote comes at a later meeting. The regular meeting starts at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall, 815 Washington St., and streams on Zoom, Facebook and BCTV (p. 1), after a 5 p.m. Committee of the Whole on whether the Centre Avenue Bridge stays open to cars.

The EMS fee rewrite

The ordinance amends the city fee schedule, § 212-114 M, "by increasing the EMS Fees." Exhibit A lists four lines (p. 30); the percentages are our arithmetic:

• Basic Life Support (BLS): $865 to $1,094.35, up 26.5 percent
• Advanced Life Support, Level 1 (ALS 1): $1,180 to $1,299.55, up 10.1 percent
• Advanced Life Support, Level 2 (ALS 2): $1,210 to $1,880.93, up 55.4 percent
• Mileage: $16 to $23.33 per mile, up 45.8 percent

The ordinance's title gives its purpose: to keep EMS reimbursement at levels that "more accurately reflect current healthcare costs, insurance reimbursement trends, and the increasing expenses associated with providing high-quality emergency medical services to our residents and visitors, thereby reducing the overall financial impact on municipal taxpayers" (p. 29). There is no separate memo, and the packet does not estimate what the new fees would raise.

On who pays, the exhibit says: "No person requiring emergency medical services shall be denied service due to a lack of insurance or ability to pay. The City shall not balance bill when prohibited by law." The city "will allow reasonable payment arrangements" (p. 31). Those paragraphs are existing code reprinted in the exhibit; the only changes marked are the four struck-through fees in the table on p. 30. The packet does not say what share of a typical bill insurance covers.

An ordinance is a city law. Council introduces it at one meeting, advertises it, then votes on final passage at a later meeting. This one, sponsored by "Fire Chief/DC Sninsky," will be advertised Nov. 16 (p. 29). The agenda does not say when the final vote comes; the next regular meeting on the schedule is Nov. 23 (p. 5).

The city's 2027 draft budget counts $4,000,000 in EMS user fees for 2027, the same as 2026, after $6,021,572 collected in 2025 (draft p. 4); it shows no effect from the new fees.

A related ordinance introduced Monday moves 2026 fire money to the outside company that bills for ambulance runs. The agenda cover says $63,458 (p. 4); the memo and ordinance add $47,000 to "Collection Expense-EMS" and $15,458 to "EMS Insurance Reimbursement" and take $62,458 from recruit training, citing "increased activity by our EMS" (pp. 35-36).

The tax rate, and a number that still does not match

The 2027 property tax ordinance, introduced Oct. 5 and held pending the budget review, is still listed at ".019261 mils on the dollar, or $19.261 on each $1,000" (p. 4). The draft budget says 19.217 mills, and our budget tracker flagged the gap Oct. 23; it is 0.044 mills, about $4.40 a year on a $100,000 assessment by our arithmetic. The discrepancy sits inside the ordinance text council will vote on. As printed in the Oct. 5 special meeting agenda, Section 1 levies "a tax of nineteen and two hundred sixty one thousandths mills (.019217) on the dollar, or nineteen dollars and twenty six point one cents ($19.217) on each one thousand dollars" (p. 5): the words say 19.261 and the numerals say 19.217, and the same agenda's item line calls it an ordinance "retaining the rate of 19.217 mils" (p. 3). The Reading Eagle reported Nov. 5 that Councilor Raymond Baker asked for projections of 1 to 5 percent tax increases, that council had been told a 3 percent increase yields about $740,000, and that no increase has been settled.

The schedule on page 5: City Hall is closed Nov. 11 for Veterans Day; budget reviews run 5 to 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16 (wastewater plant and sewer funds, plus agenda review) and Wednesday, Nov. 18 (capital budget and non-departmental accounts); and Monday, Nov. 23, brings a 5 to 7 p.m. committee meeting and a regular meeting with no time listed. The Eagle reports the Home Rule Charter requires adoption by Dec. 15 or the mayor's proposal takes effect; the city's Oct. 28 hearing agenda said Dec. 14. Our tracker has not matched either date to the charter text.

The committee's "parking lot" of open requests (COW agenda pp. 3-4) now carries a check mark and a 2027 line, "150 total w/ 102 in Suppression," under the fire staffing request that listed 144 with 104 in suppression for 2010 and 126 with 87 for 2011. The Nov. 2 request for the "Value of a 2%, 4%, 5% property tax on a property assessed at $50,000 & $100,000" is marked "distributed by J. Gombach on 11-4-26"; the answer is not in Monday's packets.

The federal housing plan, minus its CDBG table

Resolution 7A authorizes the mayor to submit the PY2027 Action Plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (p. 43). The plan covers three HUD grants: the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), flexible money for housing, facilities and services in lower-income areas; HOME, for affordable housing; and the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG), for shelters and homelessness prevention. The memo expects "approximately $2,500,000 from the CDBG Program," $910,000 from HOME and $215,000 from ESG, and says the plan must reach HUD "at least forty-five (45) days before the beginning of each fiscal year" (p. 41), Nov. 17 by our arithmetic.

The packet carries the ESG table (pp. 45-46) and the HOME table (pp. 46-47) but no table of proposed 2027 CDBG allocations: page 44 is blank, and the CDBG pages that follow (pp. 47-50) list each activity's total project cost and its 2025 allocation only. The 2027 column council reviewed Oct. 28 appears in the Oct. 28 committee agenda (pp. 5-6): $2,501,000 in all, including $500,000 for administration, $250,000 each to buy and fix up the New Journey day shelter at 525 Franklin St., and $200,000 for community policing. Our preview of that hearing has the full list.

The ESG table shows the city's proposed split departing from the recommendation of the Berks Coalition to End Homelessness, the Continuum of Care the city must consult. The coalition recommended $120,750 for Opportunity House and $58,500 for the Salvation Army and nothing for Catholic Charities or Mary's Shelter; the city proposes $100,000, $29,000, $29,500 and $20,750. Each column totals $215,000; requests totaled $497,750 (pp. 45-46).

The HOME table proposes $911,000: $450,000 for homeownership assistance, $251,000 for new housing construction, $115,000 for the set-aside for community housing development organizations (CHDOs, nonprofit housing developers the city certifies under HUD rules), $90,000 for administration and $5,000 for CHDO operating costs, against $801,000 in each of the 2025 and 2026 plans. Requests totaled $1,630,000 (pp. 46-47).

Consent agenda: a $6,000-a-month adviser, tanks, a pavilion

Consent items pass together unless a member pulls one (p. 3).

A sole-source agreement (no competing bids) retains Paper Plane Advisory of Brockway, Pa., with Morgan Boyd as principal, at $6,000 a month from Nov. 15, 2026, through Nov. 14, 2027, with a one-year option: $72,000 a year by our arithmetic (pp. 11-13). The memo from Managing Director Jack Gombach says the city "must actively market" its City Revitalization and Improvement Zone (CRIZ), a state-approved zone where state and local taxes collected inside it are used for development inside it, and that the firm will help stack "CRIZ revenue capture, Opportunity Fund equity, and state tax credits" into incentive packages and "attract and catalyze the region's life sciences industry cluster." It also states: "The Client acknowledges that Morgan Boyd, the principal assigned to this engagement, is subject to restrictions under the Pennsylvania Public Official and Employee Ethics Act that prohibit him from engaging in certain communications or advocacy with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development ("DCED") until June 1, 2027" (p. 12). During that period, it continues, "Mr. Boyd may provide strategic advice, prepare or review materials, and assist the Client with DCED-related matters, but he will not participate in any communications or advocacy prohibited by applicable law," and the firm "may assign other personnel who are not subject to such restrictions to perform DCED-related services as permitted by law" (p. 12). The memo does not say what prior role brings those restrictions.

Also by consent: $91,032.24 to Coastal Technical Sales of Montgomeryville for hypochlorite storage tanks at the wastewater plant, where the existing tanks "have begun leaking and repair has been tried and was unsuccessful" (p. 10). A memorandum of understanding lets Pagoda Skyline Inc. build and maintain a 40-by-30-foot pavilion at the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower "at no cost to the City," with the city owning it once built (pp. 6-8). The agenda puts it on the "northern side" of the tower (p. 3); the resolution says "southern side" (p. 6). And six Youth Commission members are removed for failure to attend meetings, on the commission's recommendation (pp. 14-19).

Final votes and new ordinances

Up for final passage: Bill 88-2026, dropping the duplicative failure-to-appear inspection fee from the property-sale fee schedule (pp. 20-21); Bill 89-2026, fixing lettering in the property-sales chapter (pp. 22-24); Bill 90-2026, a Solid Waste Fund transfer the agenda lists at $18,500 but whose ordinance moves $15,500 from tipping fees to fuel and plant supplies (pp. 4, 25-26); and Bill 91-2026, which the agenda lists at $45,000 for fire fuel while the ordinance adds $38,000 (pp. 4, 27-28). The Oct. 26 minutes in the same packet record the introduced amounts as $15,500 and $38,000 (p. 58).

New ordinances add a $37,841 state Fire Commissioner reimbursement for the police bomb squad's 2025 fireworks-related costs to the police vehicles account (pp. 32-34) and move $71,370 within the police capital budget from buildings to vehicles (pp. 39-40).

The Oct. 26 minutes up for approval (pp. 51-61) record the $413.87 trash fee from our preview enacted 6-0 and the AFSCME supervisors' agreement adopted 6-0 (pp. 57-59).

The 5 p.m. committee: the Centre Avenue Bridge

PennDOT needs a decision. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and Norfolk Southern "are requiring the elevation of both bridges," Centre Avenue and North Fifth Street, "so the bridges can accommodate double-decker railcars"; PennDOT pays for both (COW agenda p. 2). The Centre Avenue span, railroad-owned and built in 1918, is posted at 12 tons and "cannot accommodate certain fire apparatus"; rebuilt, it "will rise to 9 feet on the west and 7 feet on the east." PennDOT asked the city to choose between a pedestrian-only bridge and keeping one northbound lane. "The Police, Fire and Public Works Departments emphatically oppose the elimination of the Centre Ave bridge for vehicular traffic." The briefing adds, without elaboration, that "Norfolk Southern refuses to participate," and says public meetings "are expected to begin in the 1st quarter of 2027."

At 5:30 council takes up the appointment of a voting member to BCAP, the Berks Community Action Program (regular packet p. 45); the agenda does not name a nominee (COW agenda p. 1).

How to comment

City residents and taxpayers who want to speak Monday must register with the City Clerk by 4 p.m. at 610-655-6205 or council@readingpa.gov, email written comment marked "Public Comment" by 4 p.m., or sign the podium sheet in Council Chambers between 5 and 7 p.m. Speakers get five minutes on agenda items and three on other topics; Zoom chat and Facebook comments are not read into the record (pp. 1-2).