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ELKINS -- The Randolph County Commission is looking at whether to reimpose a special ambulance service fee that was suspended last month, even though an excess levy to fund ambulance service is scheduled to be on the county’s November General Election ballot.
Randolph County Prosecuting Attorney Michael Parker on Thursday afternoon provided commissioners with information concerning the Special Emergency Ambulance Service Fee Ordinance that was suspended in early July.
The West Virginia State Tax Department expressed objections about the ordinance in late June and said that imposing it violated the streamlined sales tax agreement it had in place. Tax Department officials said they would bring civil action against Randolph County for collecting any revenue generated under the ordinance, leading to the commission voting to suspend the fee days after it went into effect.
The County Commission then reached out to Parker and requested that he seek an advisory opinion from the state Attorney General on whether the service fee, in its present or other form, may still be lawfully imposed.
At Thursday’s meeting, Parker told commissioners that he received a letter back from Attorney General John McCuskey on Wednesday.
“I will say that it appears that they did a very thorough job of analyzing three questions that were presented regarding the service fee,” Parker said Thursday.
The first question he posed to McCuskey was, “Does the ordinance, as it was previously enacted, violate the authority granted to counties because it’s a tax rather than a fee?”
Parker said that McCuskey indicated the ordinance was in violation and that it would be considered a tax as it was enacted previously.
The second question Parker sent was, does the fee ordinance violate the streamlined sales and use tax agreement which is codified under West Virginia State Code 11-15B-1?
“The Attorney General indicated that, yes, it did violate the streamlined sales and use agreement based upon his interpretation of both our code sections and case law,” Parker said.
The last question Parker asked was if the ordinance could be restructured as a simple flat fee base, not upon a percentage of the cost of the goods and services purchased, but instead upon the occurrence of the transaction?
“With the last one they indicated their belief that with certain provisions that the transaction fee would be considered a flat fee and not a tax,” Parker said. “But they indicated that would be contingent upon the county eliminating the ordinances, other tax-like features such as having a minimum transaction amount or maximum transaction amount… With specific provisions about changing a couple things, they indicated that the County Commission, if it so inclined, could change the ordinance or amend the ordinance to be reflective and consistent with the attorney general’s opinion.”
Commission President David Kesling asked Parker, “So, if we would change the ordinance to a basic flat transaction fee for every transaction that’s done in the county, that would be fine?”
Parker replied, “It has to be rationally related to the user fee. So, in the event that somebody is purchasing something from outside of the county and never comes into the county, then they can be interpreted as a user of our ambulance services in Randolph County. So, if someone is purchasing something online and it never makes it physically into the county, then that would have to be excluded as well.”
Commissioner Cris Siler said, “I have a problem having somebody pay more of a transaction fee than what they actually purchase.”
Parker replied, “Another part of the analysis is that it (fee) can’t be excessive, so if you’re putting like a $10 per transaction fee, that would obviously be interpreted as excessive… But if you’re talking 10 cents per transaction or whatever, if this is the route that you guys want to consider, it would need to be reasonable. If it was excessive it would be subject to challenge.”
Kesling said that because the information provided by Parker wasn’t on the meeting’s agenda, no action could be taken regarding it.
“This is something we need to look at,” Kesling said. “We can figure out the amount of transactions based on what a 10-cent or 15-cent (fee) would possibly bring in and not do a levy.”
Kesling said that a meeting with the EMS Board is scheduled for next week and that they will discuss the issue further at that time.
“With the levy it’s the landowners that are subject more to paying for that and it’s a bigger burden on them,” Kesling said. “Where something like this, everybody shares in the burden, whether they have an apartment or have a house…
“We have stressed and stressed the dire need of the EMS and their financial situation and whether or not we want to have Randolph County EMS to survive, which we do. That’s why we started with the fee, but we had a setback with it and we had a timeline on whether or not we were going to get the decision back from the AG on time,” Kesling said. “And if we wanted to do a levy, it had to be 71 days prior to the election…So now we have another possibility that we have the blessing of the attorney general on that we need to further discuss. It’s an option that we definitely want to look at.”
Earlier this month, the Randolph County Commission approved an excess levy for the Randolph County Ambulance Authority, which will be placed on the election ballot for the November General Election.
Kesling told those attending that meeting that the Randolph County Emergency Squad recently started performing ambulance transports again at Davis Medical Center. During the meeting the Commission also approved additional funding of $70,000 to the Randolph County EMS.
In August 2025, officials announced that the Randolph EMS would no longer be making hospital-to-hospital transports from Davis Medical Center. Not long after, EMS officials said they were looking at a $1 million budget hole. But this month, Kesling told The Inter-Mountain that he and Siler met with Vandalia Health officials, and that the Randolph EMS is once again provide transports to DMC.
The next Randolph County Commission meeting will be on Sept. 3 at 1:30 p.m.