By Alexandra Perloe
Sentinel & Enterprise
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc. and Mid-States Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
FITCHBURG, Mass. — Representatives of MedStar Ambulance and the city signed a contract Thursday that will allow Fitchburg firefighters to run one MedStar-owned ambulance for a year, beginning Aug. 6.
The contract confirms what city officials said last week, that MedStar will pay $400,000 to Fitchburg in installments between now and June 30, 2008.
Of this money, $350,000 will pay salaries and associated benefits for five firefighters to run a Basic Life Support ambulance, the contract states. This same number of firefighters were otherwise slated to be laid off as part of citywide budget cuts.
MedStar will also pay $24,000 to house two Advanced Life Support vehicles, staffed by MedStar employees, in Fitchburg fire stations. Lastly, MedStar will pay $6 per call, up to $26,000 total, for all completed ambulance calls dispatched through the city’s fire department.
The city will receive a “guaranteed $400,000" no matter how many calls the Fitchburg-staffed or MedStar-staffed ambulances respond to, according to MedStar Co-director Nick Melehov.
Both Mayor Dan H. Mylott and Melehov said they hope the ambulance company makes a profit, but both also said they don’t know how much to expect.
“Four hundred thousand was a negotiated deal, because we were playing this blind. Neither one of us had an understanding of what was necessary,” Mylott said Thursday. He said the city couldn’t have gotten any more money out of the deal.
The city negotiated with several companies, including Patriot Ambulance, which ran the city’s ambulance system since 1991, but ultimately chose MedStar.
The contract requires that MedStar charge the same rates throughout the city, but does not specify these rates. And while MedStar must share the rates periodically with the city, the city must keep these numbers confidential and treat them “as a trade secret,” the contract states.
Still, these numbers will be useful in forming a long-range plan for the city’s ambulance service setup by the end of next February, as mandated in the contract.
“In a year, we’ll be able to ascertain how much it costs to run a BLS ambulance,” Mylott said. He said he doesn’t know what arrangement will transpire after this one-year contract expires, but would hope to maintain an “integrated program” in which the city and an outside contractor run the ambulance system.
The contract also creates a joint oversight committee to evaluate the ambulance service and make recommendations to the fire chief.
Mylott acknowledged that he had earlier been reluctant to look into a city-run ambulance.
“The shortage of the five men precipitated my change of thought here. My belief was the ambulance service we had was fine ... but we were going to lose five more people in the department. I said to myself, Here we have the chance to do something innovative,” Mylott said.
And since the contract guarantees Fitchburg receives $400,000, Mylott said the city can use this year as a sort of trial.
Ward 5 City Councilor Stephan Hay, who served on a recent ambulance research committee, welcomed the new arrangement and said it was “overdue.”
He said he hopes the city can earn more than $400,000 from the ambulance in future years.
The contract was signed just in time, as the five firefighters would otherwise have been laid off this weekend. The fire department still lost four staff positions, though these were through retirements. Three lieutenants were also demoted.
Fire Chief Kevin Roy could not be reached Thursday evening.