By Daveen Rae Kurutz
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review
OHIO TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Like dominoes falling one by one, four other municipalities pulled their promised funding for the Ross/West View Emergency Medical Services Authority after Ross officials slashed their $64,000 contribution from the township’s 2010 budget.
“Ohio Township residents aren’t going to be the only ones paying,” said John Sullivan, township manager. “We love the service, but our taxpayers can’t take on the region’s burden.”
This would have been the first time in the ambulance authority’s 31-year history that the communities helped fund it, said Bryan Kircher, the authority’s executive director. The money would have gone toward the purchase of a new vehicle. Kircher said the authority, which serves Millvale, Ohio Township, Reserve, Ross and West View, likely will lease a new vehicle now.
“The overall process has been frustrating at times, getting five municipalities to agree on a funding concept,” Kircher said. “To get to the 24th hour of the process, only to have it shattered is very frustrating.”
Ross commissioners slashed their EMS funding along with $1 million in road paving funds to avoid the township’s first tax increase in 18 years. Commission president Dan Kinross said it was a tough decision.
“None of those cuts that were made were what anybody wanted to do,” Kinross said. “It’s the realities of a down-turned economy.”
If another municipality had pulled its money, Kinross said he would have advocated his board of commissioners to help fund the ambulance authority, anyway.
“Had we had sufficient revenue, that would have been no reason not to continue to include them in our budget,” Kinross said.
West View manager Ken Wolf said the borough’s $10,000 contribution is still in the budget, but hasn’t been released. Kircher said he has been told that none of the five communities will give the authority money.
Health-care reimbursement to the authority has been dwindling, Kircher said, leaving it to seek alternate ways of getting money to cover costs. Initially, he had hoped for a $300,000 contribution from the municipalities. The EMS provider also asked officials from the five communities to levy a $30 per household service fee on residents.
“That met with significant resistance,” Kircher said.
Rather than charging households or municipalities for the service, Dick Hadley, Reserve’s manager, would like to see the federal or state government help.
“Their situation is not atypical to all the services out there,” Hadley said. “There needs to be legislative changes that would help them. We certainly understand their situation and want to be of assistance, but this needs to be a long-term solution, not just a one-year thing.”
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