Approximately six miles of the Interstate 94 Tollway runs through the Gurnee, and when accidents or emergencies happen within that span, the village fire department and paramedics are required to respond to help.
For years, the village hasn’t been able to recoup the full cost of sending those emergency vehicles out, but now it will be able to collect a greater share of those expenses thanks to a new intergovernmental agreement approved at Monday’s Village Board meeting.
The agreement, which was unanimously approved, is between the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and several municipalities, including Gurnee.
This isn’t the first agreement that the village has been a part of to help respond to emergencies on the Tollway, according to Village Administrator Patrick Muetz, who said the village’s’s fire department has been part of such agreements dating back to 1977, and its emergency services have been responding to incidents on the Tollway since 1985.
“A majority of the agreement is the same, but now the language as far as charging for service out there has changed,” Muetz said.
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He added that as part of the agreements made with the Tollway, the village has a choice of how to recoup some of the funds spent in responding to the emergencies — by either billing the Tollway a flat fee or by billing the insurance of the people involved in the emergency situations.
“When the Gurnee fire department responds out there on our section of the Tollway … we could bill the Tollway $300 or bill the individual’s insurance,” Muetz said. “We’ve always chosen to bill the individuals because there’s a greater ability to recoup our costs through that method.”
The contract was updated after the representatives from the Tollway and members of the Illinois Fire Chiefs Association entered negotiations to make a new contract, according to Muetz, who said that they came up with changes that were favorable to the fire departments that respond to I-94 emergencies.
Muetz said that under the new agreement, the village of Gurnee is able to bill both the Tollway $500, which is an increase of $200 from the previous agreement, as well as the individual’s insurance.
“There’s an ability to greater recoup our costs,” Muetz said. “It still won’t be covered, but more than we have previously been able to recover.”
According to Muetz, the village responded to more than 70 emergencies on the Tollway last year, which could have resulted in it billing the Tollway for more than $30,000, that the village would have taken in as revenue under the new agreement.