(a) Emergency medical services to be provided the residents of any county or any designated area of the county pursuant to the provisions of this subchapter may be financed by service charges levied in the ordinance establishing the service.
(b) (1) The service charges may be assessed and collected on a per capita, per household, or per unit of service basis or a combination of any of these, as may be determined by the quorum court, and shall be collected in such manner as may be prescribed by ordinance of the quorum court.
(2) If the quorum court elects by ordinance to have the service charges entered on ad valorem tax notices and collected by the county collector at the time of collecting real and personal property taxes, the collector shall not accept payment of any ad valorem taxes unless the taxpayer at the same time pays any service charges billed to him or her to finance emergency medical services.
(c) All funds derived from the levy of service charges to support the furnishing of emergency medical services in the county or designated area shall be used only for the purposes for which levied, and a separate account shall be maintained in the county treasury in which all funds shall be deposited.
(d) (1) The funds shall be expended only on appropriation of the quorum court and shall be subject to the same accounting and disbursement procedures and requirements as other county funds.
(2) A quorum court may expend the funds directly to an emergency medical services provider selected for the area without observing the accounting requirements of other county funds if:
(A) The quorum court appropriates the funds for that purpose;
(B) The voters of an emergency medical services district have approved the collection of service charges by placement of those fees on the ad valorem tax notices; and
(C) The quorum court determines by resolution that the annual cost of providing emergency medical services to the district exceeds the annual amount collected as service charges by the placement of the service charges on the ad valorem tax notices.
Section: Previous 20-13-302 20-13-303 20-13-304 20-13-305 20-13-306 20-13-307 NextLast modified: November 15, 2016