EMS Budget & Levy Update

This story submitted by Louise Dustrude…

Meeting in the shadow of grim budget realities and two failed levies, the public hospital district board on Friday edged closer to setting the level for a levy for Emergency Medical Services to be submitted to the voters in August.

The budget currently proposed is still $640,000 away from balancing, and the five-member board tossed it to the EMS staff and volunteers to come up with suggestions for cutting costs by that amount.

There is an EMS retreat scheduled for Thursday and Friday at the EMS building near the hospital (10-4 on Thursday and 8-5 on Friday) and that will be their opportunity to suggest ways of balancing the budget, which board chair Bill Williams compared to “doing surgery on yourself.”

EMS Chief Jerry Martin accepted the challenge on behalf of the group, and pointed out that the retreat will be open to the public, but he encouraged anyone who attends to be there for the entire time so as to understand all the ramifications of decisions.

The board voted, as a back-up, to invite one or more paid consultants to submit proposals for helping them to balance the budget.

The time to do so is perilously short. To get a levy on the August ballot it must be submitted to the county by May 13.

Even a budget reduced by the $640,000 will require an increased levy of 50 cents per thousand, which needs a super-majority (60%) to pass.

Board chair Williams pointed out that a 50-cent levy would increase the tax on a home assessed at $250,000 by about $38 a year over the present 35-cent levy, and suggested that voters might prefer to pay that much more to maintain the excellent EMS service we are accustomed to.

The special meeting at 3 pm on Friday was packed with interested citizens, many of them EMTs or paramedics. Herb Mason, who has been a volunteer with the aid unit since 1985, drew the only applause of the afternoon after pleading with the board not to reduce services or in any way lower the quality of care offered on the island.

Mason said he would rather forego his stipend, paid to the volunteer EMTs for each call, than see the quality of service reduced, and he believed others feel the same.

He put the blame on the former chief, Jim Cole, for “a very expensive building that we really didn’t need,” and had high praise for current chief Martin.

He also suggested that the emergency service might be better off if it merged with the fire department again, saying “that’s where we came from.”

The public is invited to attend one of two Town Hall meetings about the EMS levy next week. See adjoining story.

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