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Hearing set on forming ambulance taxing
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February 7, 2012 |
Boundary County Commissioners will hold a public
hearing at 6 p.m. Tuesday, February 28, in the
extension office meeting room, to accept public
testimony on whether or not a county-wide taxing
district should be formed to maintain and
improve ambulance within Boundary County.
Under Idaho Code, each county in the state is
obligated to provide ambulance service, and
since 1965, Boundary County has relied on the
Boundary Volunteer Ambulance Association, a
501(c)3 non-profit organization, to provide
ambulance services, but with new state and
federal requirements and increased costs, the
organization could be dissolved.
As a state-mandated requirement, creating an
ambulance taxing district is one of very few, if
not the only time in the State of Idaho, that a
special taxing district can be formed solely by
action of a Board of County Commissioners,
without a vote of the citizens required.
Not only is the formation of a taxing district
at issue, so too is, if such a district is
formed, who will provide the service?
Commissioners aren't obligated to retain the
services of Boundary Volunteer Ambulance, and
could choose to enter into a contract with
another service provider.
According to Chief Ken Baker, Boundary Volunteer
Ambulance, manned primarily by 25 volunteer EMTs
and eight drivers, respond to an average of 800
calls per year, a number that grows each year as
the population ages and more and more tourists
travel to and through the area. They operate
five ambulances and two rescue units, all of
them aging.
"Because we're a volunteer service," Baker said,
"only a handful of EMTs respond to 90-percent of
the calls, as most have to work and can't leave
when the pagers go off. When they have to
respond to calls in the middle of the night,
they still have to get up the next morning and
go to work. It's stretching us pretty thin."
Currently, BVA recieves $8,000 a year from the
county, as well as a small office and space to
house two ambulances and one extrication unit.
The rest of their funding comes solely from
billing ... but only around one-third of the
calls they respond to are billable; they're not
reimbursed for all the fire calls they respond
to, for responding to unknown injury accidents,
to non-transport calls or to all the standbys
they do at Badger sporting events or the many
events organized by other groups, such as the
Kootenai River Rodeo, the county fair, the
Penguin Plunge.
"We're a very community-oriented organization,
and our volunteers have always been there when
the community needs us," Baker said. "If a
district is approved and another service
contracted, I don't think they'll be as open to
supporting community activities and events."
Of the billable responses, he said, only about
60-percent are paid. Current annual costs for
the organization run at over $200,000, and
current revenues are around $240,000 ... not a
very comfortable margin.
If the taxing district is approved and BVA
chosen to continue providing county ambulance
services, Baker said they'll need an estimated
$350,000 per year, with which Association plans
to aquire land and an ambulance facility of
their own, which would be manned around the
clock and provide the training room each EMT
requires to maintain certification, hire up to
three full-time paramedics, and purchase new
Advanced Life Support (ALS) equipped ambulances
on a rotating cycle, which are required by the
state to transport critically ill patients.
"Right now, Boundary Volunteer Ambulance, with
our Intermediate Life Support capability cannot
transport critically ill patients to another
facility," Baker said. "A lot of times, weather
prevents MedStar from flying in, so we have to
bring up a licensed ALS unit from as far away as
Spokane to make these critical transports. We
want to change that."
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