Page 44 - Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council

The City of Benbrook participates in the Tarrant County Cooperative Purchasing Program. Each year, the County
contracts with local and national suppliers of products, equipment, and services. The City is allowed to benefit from
these negotiated contracts.

In April 2016, the City of Benbrook entered into an Interlocal agreement with Tarrant County for participation in the
Inter-Jurisdictional Emergency Management Program (I-JEMP). I-JEMP allowed Benbrook to join a group of Tarrant
County cities for emergency management planning and coordination under the leadership of the Tarrant County
Emergency Management Office. For many years, City staff wrote and maintained a separate emergency management
plan. Through the I-JEMP, Tarrant County and other member cities established similar programs for comprehensive
emergency management including mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Joining I-JEMP eliminated
redundant annual updates performed by City staff saving significant time and resources.

Mutual Aid Agreement with MedStar

The City of Benbrook and MedStar entered into a mutual aid agreement for 2018-19 at no cost to the City of
Benbrook. This agreement was made because population growth in Benbrook and Southwest Tarrant County
resulted in an increase in emergency medical services (EMS) response call volumes. In addition, bariatric patient
transports are more common due to the national rise in obesity. General population growth heightens the
possibility of a large-scale incident requiring multiple simultaneous EMS transports.

The mutual aid agreement between MedStar and the City of Benbrook helps address these emerging issues by
leveraging the response capabilities of both participating entities. The agreement allows Benbrook to utilize
MedStar’s bariatric unit for large patients that pose a loading problem for Benbrook’s ambulances. In addition, the
agreement provides access to the MedStar Ambus in the event of large-scale incident. The Ambus can provide
patient care and transport up to twenty-two patients at a time. The agreement also insures a MedStar EMS response
if all four Benbrook ambulances are unavailable due to other Benbrook EMS responses. MedStar may utilize
Benbrook EMS if an incident occurs that requires a multi-agency response. Unifying local participation is
particularly important during a natural disaster or other major catastrophe. The term of the agreement is for one
year, with automatic annual contract renewal with the mutual consent of both parties. There is no cost to
participate. Each entity is responsible for all matters of loss, property damage, personal injury, or death related to
its services.

CITY OF BENBROOK 2018-19 ANNUAL BUDGET
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