The News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington)
Copyright 2006 The News Tribune
All Rights Reserved
Boomeritis is hitting the Tacoma Fire Department hard.
Calls for emergency medics are increasing faster than the population is growing. Medic One transports are up 41 percent in the last four years.
The main reason is the 45- to 59-year-old age group, the baby boomers. There are more of them, and they are in that age group when people usually start experiencing their first major medical problems. Exacerbating the problem, boomers continue to push their bodies hard - and have the injuries to show for it.
The increase in emergency transports, combined with rising gas prices and employee health care costs, is posing a big problem for the fire department’s medic units. Expenses are increasing 8 percent a year, but proceeds from the EMS property tax levy that supplies two-thirds of the EMS budget are growing less than 3 percent a year.
Voters approved an increase in the permanent EMS levy in 2002, allowing the department collect 50 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value. But the state’s 1 percent limit on growth in property tax revenues has effectively reduced the EMS levy rate to 40 cents per $1,000.
Now the department is asking voters to restore the 50-cent rate. The 10-cent increase would cost the owner of the average $224,000 house approximately $38 more next year than they paid this year.
The department has proved a good steward of the money voters approved last time around, adding a fifth medic unit that has helped shave seconds off the average response time despite the surge in transports. Paramedic crews also have made progress in hastening the handoff of patients at hospitals, allowing units to be available again faster.
A portion of the staffing for the fifth medic unit has been coming out of the fire department’s general fund, requiring the department to pay more overtime to fill the gaps on the firefighting side. The levy-lid lift on the primary election ballot would allow the department to meet its expenses and assume the entire cost of staffing the fifth medic unit.
Tacoma voters have a good record of supporting the fire department’s paramedics. With the need greater than ever, it is time to renew that support.