LARGO – City commissioners will mull over proposed solutions to emergency medical funding woes after hearing a presentation from county officials at a July 12 work session.
Pinellas County Administrator Bob LaSala told Largo Commissioners July 12, he hopes that local government officials can reach a solution together on EMS funding problems.
“One that is absolutely not on the back of any one community, but nonetheless is fair to the entirety of Pinellas County,” LaSala said.
Facing a $13.4 million deficit in EMS funding, by the middle of the next fiscal year, the system will be “flat out of money,” LaSala said.
County officials have been studying a variety of ways to address the shortfall. LaSala said that he is recommending a different funding scenario, taking in account countywide EMS budget costs for vehicles and personnel. It also includes a proposed increase of a quarter mill in the EMS millage effective Oct. 1. However, solely raising the millage rate is not expected to solve funding inequities.
The impact on the city of Largo would be a reduction in EMS funding of about $560,000, effective 2012. County officials plan an increase in millage and new funding approach, LaSala said.
“However, it is my opinion there won’t be a degradation in service,” LaSala said. “The number of units that will be running in the city of Largo will be the same number of units that are running today.”
Commissioner Harriet Crozier said “as a resident of Largo, I have no problem if you have to increase the EMS tax at my house so that we don’t keep tilting into the general fund and in a year or two years you have run out of money and then there’s a much larger increase you may have to ask for …”
“I’m very disappointed there were not small baby steps that were done rather than just keeping pulling from that savings that seems to not be replenishing,” Crozier said.
LaSala said as a commissioner, Crozier could launch an effort in the city of Largo to raise city millage to make up that difference if the city wants to provide a level of service that exceeds what he has referred to as the “platinum” response time level, seven and a half minutes 90 percent of the time, and provide a “more enriched level of service.”
“I invite you to convince your colleagues to raise your millage to pay for that,” LaSala said.
He said a vast majority of county commissioners “are going to have difficulty with this millage and to get it to the levels you’re talking about, we will run up against the 1.5 mill cap in a very short period of time.”
Commenting on another topic, LaSala said that smaller fire departments would have to “rethink how they do business. We all have to start to think differently about the role in government and what we can afford to deliver and what people are willing to pay for.”
LaSala said he and City Manager Mac Craig have had several conversations on shared services and “we will continue to explore that.”
“I have to say with all due respect, we feel your pain. A half million dollars is a lot of money to us,” Mayor Pat Gerard said. “We are willing to be good partners in this. I think we want it to be fair as well.”
Gerard asked for a staff report on the EMS system analysis by Fire Chief Michael Wallace.
Three issues that the county administrator said are important to counties and cities in examining the EMS are protecting the service that citizens expect and deserve, establishing equity in the system and beginning to use cost controls to optimize the resources available.
With the exception of a quarter-mill increase, county officials are looking to implement changes in the system by Oct. 1, 2012.
