Addie McCluskey
Elmore Autauga News
Prattville City Council voted to amend language in the ambulance fee policy, Jan. 6, 2026, during their regular meeting, following concerns related to fees and collections.
The Ambulance Fee Committee, which includes the fire chief, an EMS officer, the city’s finance director, and the fire committee chairman, met in early December to review the policy’s wording. As previously written, the policy did not allow ambulance fees for city retirees to be written off, which would result in those accounts being sent to collections.
“The changes in the policy allow us to not bill City of Prattville retirees for an ambulance ride to the hospital,” said Fire Chief Josh Bingham. “There are no changes to the fee schedule. We are simply just trying to clean up the policy to allow us to write bills off.”
District 5 Councilor Michael Whaley, a former deputy fire chief with the Prattville Fire Department, also addressed the issue.
“Having a thorough knowledge of the ambulance billing policy and fee schedule, I know that what we have run into before with the retirees who were still on the city’s insurance, which is self-funded, is that we were actually billing ourselves,” said Whaley.
After the consent agenda was adopted, councilors debated whether the resolution to amend the ambulance fee policy was suitable for inclusion on the consent agenda, citing public concerns about the specific language of the changes.
“I know Ms. Finnegan came up and was asking about the language and being able to see it before the consent agenda,” said District 2 Councilor Marcus Jackson. “Is there anything we need to do for the residents, or was Chief Bingham’s explanation of the process significant?”
The council ultimately voted to remove the resolution from the consent agenda, placing it on the regular agenda and allowing the resolution to be read aloud.
“I would just like to say thank you to Chief Bingham for answering these questions,” said District 7 Councilor Thea Langley. “I just feel that, with the consent agenda typically filled with rubbish and garbage and those kinds of things, this deserved to be on the open agenda, not only for what it is, but so that the citizens have a better understanding of what we are about to potentially pass.”
Following Langley’s comments, the council unanimously approved the resolution amending the ambulance fee policy.
For more information about the meeting, watch the live recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch.
