City Council Meeting: September 13, 2022 Santa Monica, California ORDINANCE NUMBER _____ (CCS)
(City Council Series)
AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA AMENDING SANTA MONICA MUNICIPAL CODE SECTION 4.65.030 TO
PROVIDE A TEMPORARY EXEMPTION FOR EMERGENCY AMBULANCE AND
BILLING SERVICES
WHEREAS, on March 8, 2005 the City Council of the City of Santa Monica adopted Ordinance No. 2152 (the “Living Wage Ordinance”) to require that persons working on City contracts over a threshold amount receive a living wage; and WHEREAS, the findings approved as part of that ordinance established that its purposes include ensuring that those workers have sufficient income to pay the high costs of living in the City, region, and state, to cover health care, and to have the leisure to participate in civic life; and
WHEREAS, the Living Wage Ordinance is broadly applicable to all City contracts in the amount of $54,200 or more; and
WHEREAS, recent experience has demonstrated that in some circumstances strict adherence to the requirements of the Living Wage Ordinance is detrimental to the City's welfare and does not serve the ordinance's purposes; and WHEREAS, providing emergency ambulance transport services is of vital importance to the City; and
WHEREAS, providers of emergency ambulance transport services do not control rates for the services they provide and thus cannot currently comply with the City's Living Wage Ordinance; and
WHEREAS, on July 11, 2017, the City Council adopted Ordinance No. 2548, which amended Santa Monica Municipal Code Section 4.65.030 to provide for a temporary exemption to the Living Wage Ordinance for emergency ambulance and billing services until June 30, 2020; and
WHEREAS, on June 23, 2020, the City Council adopted Ordinance No. 2640, which amended Santa Monica Municipal Code Section 4.65.030 to extend the sunset of the temporary exemption to the Living Wage Ordinance for emergency ambulance and billing services to until January 31, 2023; and
WHEREAS, given the likelihood that the City will ultimately opt to extend the term of its current contract for emergency ambulance and billing services, the City’s contract with the provider of these services could have a contract term that continues until January 31, 2025, or two years past the expiration of the temporary exemption to the Living Wage Ordinance; and
WHEREAS, the City wishes to amend Santa Monica Municipal Code Section
4.65.030 to further extend the sunset provision in the exemption to the Living Wage Ordinance so that the expiration of the exemption is in alignment with the longest possible contract term for the City’s current contract with its emergency ambulance and billing services provider, or until January 31, 2025.
NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA DOES HEREBY ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 4.65.030 of the Santa Monica Municipal Code is hereby amended to read as follows:
4.65.030 Exemption.
The requirements of this Chapter shall not apply to employers that are government agencies, City grantees, nonprofit corporations, corporations providing banking services, or entities providing emergency ambulance and billing services. The exemption set forth in this Section for entities providing emergency ambulance and billing services shall sunset on January 31, 2025.
SECTION 2. Any provision of the Santa Monica Municipal Code or appendices thereto inconsistent with the provisions of this Ordinance, to the extent of such inconsistencies and no further, is hereby repealed or modified to that extent necessary to effect the provisions of this Ordinance.
SECTION 3. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional.
SECTION 4. The Mayor shall sign and the City Clerk shall attest to the passage of this Ordinance. The City Clerk shall cause the same to be published once in the official newspaper within 15 days after its adoption. This Ordinance shall become effective 30 days from its adoption.
APPROVED AS TO FORM
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Douglas Sloan, City Attorney