Firegeezer notes:  On Sunday we posted an article HERE about Clark County, Washington, having ALS service withdrawn in one area of the county.  The newspaper report that we referenced was incomplete in its description of the problem.  A member of one of the involved FD’s offered to tell the full story and we are glad to have him join us.  This is a good example of the sorts of funding problems that can come up anywhere.

For his peace of mind and to protect the innocent, we’ll just call our guest columnist “Firefighter Dave.”  He writes:

There are three EMS transport providers in Clark County, an all-ALS system. Only one is fire-based, Camas Fire, which operates four ALS units from two stations. In 1980 the East County Paramedic Service was created, utilizing Camas ambulances to cover the Cities of Camas and Washougal, and Clark County Fire Districts #1 and #9. Funding came from a $0.25/$1,000 property tax levy, approved by 91%.

Clark County (in red)

In 2006 District #1 merged into District #9 and the new entity became East County Fire & Rescue (ECFR), serving out of five stations. Also that year, the EMS levy was increased for the first time ever, from $0.25 to $0.35/$1,000. Camas and Washougal voters approved the increase, but ECFR voters did not. ECFR put it on the ballot again, and again it failed.

By refusing the renewal at $0.35, ECFR voters effectively eliminated the entire levy contribution from ECFR, as the vote was not to approve or deny the increase, but to approve or deny the entire levy at the new rate.

ECFR was forced to begin billing for EMS responses, but only patients who received treatment and/or transport were billed. Despite setting our fee on the high side knowing that not all would be paid, ECFR is still losing money. This is exacerbated by Washington State Initiative 747 from 2001, where Washington State voters decided that the tax-based budgets of fire departments (among many other things) can only increase by 1% per year.

ECFR has survived on 1% per year since, but this year was the limit. With the 1% increases, our tax rate had decayed from $1.25/$1,000 to just $0.83/$1,000. Without an increase, we would be forced to start laying off paid staff to stay in the black. A property tax levy lid lift, to simply return us to $1.25/$1,000, was on the ballot last month and it was a contentious issue. Lots of nasty letters to the editor and such. It passed - barely - 1405 to 1375 (by 29 votes) with 49% voter turnout.

ECFR had no intention of raising the EMS levy issue again. Billing is a drag, but we knew getting the lid lift would be a challenge, and we have no desire to enrage the average uninformed voter by slapping an EMS levy on the ballot right after the lid lift. Your average person, only half-paying attention or less, only sees that we’re asking for money. While the EMS levy was nice, the lid lift was absolutely vital to the continued existence of ECFR. Our view was to suck it up and keep billing unless there was a groundswell of public support to pass the EMS levy again.

But now, Camas Fire has forced our hand, and I surely don’t blame them. Under the EMS levy, some of the levy funds from ECFR’s homeowners went directly to Camas Fire to support the ALS program. Now without the levy, Camas is billing ECFR calls at full rate. Like us, they are getting a large number of nonpayments, and they are also losing money on ECFR calls.

Camas then came to the realization that Washougal voters might take notice. Why should Washougal voters continue to pay the levy to get ambulances from Camas while ECFR residents don’t pay the levy and still get ambulances from Camas? If Washougal’s contribution went away, Camas alone would not be able subsidize ambulances for the entire area. Additionally, if Camas was forced to also withdraw from serving Washougal, they would end up being forced into layoffs to trim staffing back to their reduced call volume, and ultimately might not have enough volume to justify their ALS service at all, leading to more cuts.

So, Camas has done the only thing they can, attempting to wake up ECFR voters by withdrawing in two closely-spaced stages. It is not clear yet if the second stage will come before or after we try again to get the EMS levy passed. This leaves ECFR with the next-closest ALS provider AMR, which is under contract with Clark County EMS District #2 and responds from Vancouver and Battle Ground. Unless AMR chooses to place a unit in our district (unlikely), response times will increase by anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes.

We heard some vile stuff from our most vocal opponents through the newspapers during the levy lid lift when we warned of layoffs and days of nonstaffing, suggesting we were making idle threats to get our way. But I assure you our paid staff is breathing a little easier now. No doubt once again we will get pinned to the wall by a constituency that claims we are threatening them for money again by holding back ambulances, and ironically it isn’t even our call this time. It is discouraging, because these situations have all been created by voter action, and then when our hand is forced we end up hearing the worst. People will surely die over these cuts, and no doubt we will be told we did that on purpose, too.

More than ever, I encourage everyone, take time to make sure your taxpayers know what they’re getting for their money, what you do, and what it takes to continue providing the service they expect.

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