Today you call 911 and expect in a matter of minutes, not hours, to have medical attention at your side. Our modern 911 system is designed as your interface to connect you to our public emergency medical services. Public services being defined as those services operated with taxation on some local residents. Not all residents pay the EMS tax and those that do pay an unequal amount based on how much local real estate they own. This tax is in no way related to use. This is the way capitol is raised for local government and redistributed to Oklahoma 522 Ambulance Boards to provide EMS services.
A rational person would expect that first responders would always go where they are dispatched. At the March 2nd 2015 meeting of the Logan Board of Commissioners the City of Guthrie, represented by the city manager and fire chief, indicated there was to be a change to services currently provided by the city for ambulance service to the Logan County EMS District 1-1 which follows the Guthrie school district boundaries.
At this meeting, the City of Guthrie first announced their intentions to quit responding to 911 calls outside the geographic boundaries of the Guthrie School District unless other “non 522” areas in the 911 district started giving them an additional 3 mills property tax. They indicated that the financial loss associated with responding to out of boundary calls was bankrupting the city.
Current state statutes, law, and an attorney general opinion, require that 522 ambulance districts bill for the actual cost of services provided to those dispatched outside of their district boundary but inside their 911 dispatch area. Services provided outside the boundary are billed for actual cost of that service regardless of any property tax reimbursement to the district.
With the latest issues surrounding the Crescent EMS board and without the assistance of the new city manager it seems that the Guthrie fire chief is continuing on his own to advocate for a county wide EMS district. This proposal would do away with the three existing 522 districts, their boards, and assets, and combine them into one large 522 district in order to levy an additional 3 mill property tax on the rest of the county.
It’s very unusual to find a salaried public employee who advocates suspending emergency services to areas outside the district boundary, even if allowed by law, unless the property owners in that area agrees to pay the additional 3 mill levy. It’s even more unusual when you consider they are providing those services today outside their district boundary and last reported making a profit for the City of Guthrie this last year. 12 min 30 sec into this YouTube Video
Clearly it’s not really about not having enough money. So what are the real issues? What problems do we really need to solve? Currently Logan County has three 522 EMS boards that follow a single school district boundary. Replacing what we have today with a larger consolidated district to raise more tax revenue will not address the core issues we have today with our county ambulance services.
With the Guthrie fire chief reporting his division as a revenue generator for the city; our problem is clearly not a funding constraint for the Logan 522 board. The 522 board that currently is responsible to the taxpayers in the Guthrie school district should require the same out of district dispatch in future service contracts with the City of Guthrie as is provided today or maybe they look at hiring a different service provider.
The Crescent EMS 522 district boundary is the Crescent school district. The Crescent EMS board’s main issue seems to center around an inability to keep medical technicians who wanted to work for $8 an hour for an ineffective leadership. This board has over a hundred thousand dollars on deposit and good equipment. Our plan should be to let this new team put this EMS district back on its feet.
The Cashion EMS 522 boundary also follows it school district and is the third EMS district in our county that spans three different counties, Logan, Kingfisher, and Canadian.
I recommend we keep the current 522 organization. Keep them small and close to the people they serve. We should encourage the residents who live in rural area school districts outside the three 522 districts to either be allowed to continue receive 911 emergency services as they do today, with an appropriate increased charge and longer dispatch time (compared to in district dispatch); or, those residents can vote to establish their own individual 522 boards or collectively come together and form a single multi school district board to service only those areas.
We don’t need to scrap everything in the county and start from scratch to provide county wide emergency services. Let’s be very careful here that we only address and fix what’s broke with the counties current ambulance services, larger is never better when it comes to a government service organization.
Marven Goodman
Commissioner
Logan County, District 1