Geary County officials are responding to an ongoing disagreement with Junction City over billing of EMS services.
The county commission issued a statement Monday in reaction to Junction City’s recent decision to suspend EMS services outside of the city limits if a bill totaling over $800,000 isn’t paid by this month. Geary County says they received an invoice in April in the amount of $121,000 that the city described as “charges inadvertently omitted” dating back to February 2022. The county says it was by the city’s own admission that 10 of the 12 months were billed incorrectly.
According to the statement, Geary County continues to insist it will not honor the charges dating back to 2022 as the books had already been closed on their budget by the time they received the invoice. The county says it has tried repeatedly to get details on the billing from city officials but have been denied, even going as far as to file an open records request. It instead received a response that providing those details would cost a quote “outlandish deposit of $10,000.”
City officials were expected Tuesday night to consider a memo calling for the first of three payments to be paid by the end of the month to avoid discontinuing ambulance service outside the city limits.
Geary County has invited the city commission to reconcile with them Thursday, with a 7 p.m. meeting scheduled at the Geary County Office Building.
