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ELKINS – The Randolph County Commission announced this week that it will be submitting refunds to residents who paid the new special ambulance fee before it was suspended this month.
At its previous meeting on July 2, the RCC voted to suspend the fee after the West Virginia State Tax Department expressed objections to the fee ordinance, which the Commission approved back in April.
The County Commission has reached out to the state attorney general to seek advice on the service fee.
“As you know, at our last meeting we suspended the special emergency ambulance service fee pending a review from the state attorney general,” Commission President David Kesling said during Wednesday afternoon’s meeting. “We’ve talked to the state tax department and we have sent letters out to all the businesses that were affected. So everybody should have those, directing them to stop collecting the fee.”
Kesling said the Commission is asking those who made purchases to remit any ambulance fees that were collected.
“If the fee was collected, it has to be remitted and then we are going to hold that money from Aug. 1st to Aug. 31st,” Kesling said. “If anybody has proper documentation of a receipt where they paid that fee and they would like the money back, they can contact us and then we can refund the money out of the money that has been removed.”
Kesling said there will be a form concerning the fee posted to the Randolph County Commissions’ website (randolphctywv.gov).
“The fee has been suspended pending the outcome of the state attorney general’s recommendation,” Kesling said. “We have asked for a review, and any fee that was collected still gets remitted and then we are holding that for 30 days until the end of August. If anybody has a valid receipt and would like a refund from that, it will be given by Aug. 31.”
In April, the Commission approved the fee ordinance during a regular meeting after a second and final reading.
The ordinance was put in place to help fund the Randolph County Emergency Squad, which announced earlier in the year that it was facing a $1 million budget shortfall. The West Virginia sales tax is at 6%, and the ordinance fee tacked on an additional 0.4% fee collected throughout Randolph County.
The next regular Randolph County Commission meeting will be Aug. 6 at 1:30 p.m.