The Village of Oak Park officially joined an intergovernmental agreement to receive reimbursement from the Chicago Transit Authority for first responder services at the local Blue and Green line el stops in conjunction with other municipalities.
The village board unanimously approved the agreement at its meeting on Sept. 29. Forest Park had approved it at its Sept. 14 council meeting; River Forest and Rosemont had previously approved it.
“Police and fire have been meeting with these municipalities since February. We started looking to see if our fee structure was fair, looking at our responses and coming up with one [intergovernmental agreement] we could take to the CTA for unity and to make sure we are all operating on the same page,” said Oak Park Fire Chief JT Terry.
The agreement allows for reimbursement per occurrence of $3,000 for EMS transport, $500 for Fire Department response with no transport, $75 per police patrol officer response, $85 per police sergeant response, $30 per auxiliary officer response. Also, specifically for the Village of Oak Park, it provides $82.82 per hour, per pair of civilian alternative first responders.
All four municipalities will file a joint invoice to the CTA by Jan. 15 each year, and the CTA will give reimbursements in February. Each municipality has to report its own spreadsheet and supporting documents for qualifying events to that year’s Invoice Coordinator by Jan. 8. The Oak Park Fire Department will be the Invoice Coordinator for the 2027 calendar year.
Although it is difficult to have exact estimates for expected revenue generated through this agreement, Terry estimated it at about $60,500 in July from 34 calls with mixed transport and just response.
Village Chief Financial Officer Kevin Bueso clarified at the meeting that the expected revenue has not been included in the 2027 budget, as they don’t know exactly how much will be generated. For now, the plan is to have the funds come restricted into the general fund before looking at the “full organizational picture” of what each department’s needs are.
“We’re going to see what happens for the full year impact in 2027. We think that by the end of 2027, you guys should probably have a good plan of how they’re going to move forward, and then we’ll have better assumptions into whether that’s a sustainable, consistent revenue stream that we can then incorporate into the operating budget,” said Bueso.