By Tom Kertscher
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MILWAUKEE COUNTY —Milwaukee County, which contributed $3 million this year toward providing paramedic services throughout the county, has made its initial funding proposal for paramedic services for 2010.
The amount: zero.
County officials emphasize that no final decisions have been made on any part of the county’s 2010 budget, which won’t be adopted until the fall.
“The budget is still very early in the process, and so everything is being reviewed,” said Lisa Jo Marks, interim director of the county Department of Health and Human Services.
But communities without their own paramedics worry about the county subsidy. So do the paramedic-equipped communities that serve communities without paramedics and count on the subsidy to defray costs.
“I can’t put it in number form, but I can feel it in pain form,” said Brian Satula, the fire chief in Oak Creek, which has paramedics.
Satula and Ryan McCue, the mayor of Cudahy, which doesn’t have paramedics, said the paramedic program has been rated as being among the best in the nation.
“The program is a prime example of how consolidation in Milwaukee County works, and if each community were to run the paramedic program independently, it would cost taxpayers a lot more money than if Milwaukee County were to continue to administer it,” McCue said.
Here’s an overview of how the paramedic service works:
Eight fire departments provide paramedic services: Milwaukee, South Milwaukee, Oak Creek, Franklin, Greenfield, Wauwatosa, West Allis and North Shore, which serves Bayside, Brown Deer, Fox Point, Glendale, River Hills, Shorewood and Whitefish Bay.
Through a cooperative agreement, the eight departments provide paramedic services to neighboring communities without paramedics.
The county subsidy has been used, in part, to support the communities that provide the paramedic services. Paramedics can provide life-saving techniques that emergency medical technicians are not trained or licensed to provide.
Marks, who proposed no paramedic money in her department’s budget proposal, said she focused her budget request on mandates, programs the county is required by state law to provide and programs in which county property tax money must be allocated.
“Nothing was necessarily targeted,” she said of budget cuts. “It was really the focus on what was mandated.”
Satula, the Oak Creek fire chief, said the paramedic program and a county subsidy of some sort have been in place for about 30 years.
“Long before they talked about sharing services, the fire services were doing mutual aid and the paramedic service was truly a universal service in the county,” he said.
On Monday, the county’s mayors and village presidents will vote on a resolution calling on the County Board and County Executive Scott Walker to keep the subsidy at $3 million for 2010.
The next decision on whether there will be any county paramedic funding rests with Walker.
Fran McLaughlin, a Walker spokeswoman, said Walker would not comment on any particular budget items until he finishes his review, begun last week, of all budget proposals submitted by county department heads.
Walker can reshape those proposals before he submits his entire budget proposal to the County Board on Sept. 24.
What’s next
The Intergovernmental Cooperation Council of Milwaukee County, which is composed of the mayors and village presidents of the county’s 19 cities and villages, is scheduled to vote on a resolution Monday. The resolution calls on County Executive Scott Walker and the County Board to allocate $3 million, as it did for 2009, toward paramedic services in 2010.
Other counties
Ozaukee County: The Thiensville Volunteer Fire Department, whose firefighters and paramedics are paid-on-call, is the only department in the county with paramedics, Village Administrator Dianne Robertson said. No county funding is provided. Revenue comes from the patients treated by the paramedics or their insurers, including Medicare.
Washington County: The West Bend Fire Department responds to most calls within the county that require treatment from paramedics, Battalion Chief Todd Van Langen said. Some communities use a private paramedic service. Revenue comes from the patients treated by the paramedics or their insurers, including Medicare.
Waukesha County: More than half a dozen fire departments in the county have paramedics and a number of them serve communities in the county that don’t employ paramedics.
Copyright 2009 Journal Sentinel Inc.