By Gary Pinnell
The Highlands Today
SEBRING, Fla. — A push to transfer 10 county departments to private employers began in 2013 when Positive Mobility’s Ron Layne suggested ambulances for hire should transport non-emergency patients. Tea party members stood in front of the county commission and lobbied for months for Layne’s plan.
Eventually, Highlands County commissioners agreed.
“That was also the best part of the revenue,” Chairman Jim Brooks said Tuesday. The cost, said public information coordinator Gloria Rybinski in March 2014, was about $854,000 in non-emergency transports since 2009.
But the emergency part of the ambulance service is unlikely to be privatized, three commissioners said Tuesday.
“I don’t think that was ever looked at too closely,” Brooks said. Staffers talked to Columbia County, which privatized its EMS, but nothing came of those talks.
“We’re always willing to look at that,” Commissioner Don Elwell said, and Commissioner Jack Richie agreed.
“But no one has approach us with any proposals that says we can do that same job for a lot less,” Elwell said. “Plus, our own EMS is beyond excellent.”
The commissioners went a lot farther down the road to privatizing county services in a 2014 goal-setting workshop: recycling, landfill, libraries, Healthy Families, real estate surveying, fleet maintenance, asphalt production and road paving. Bids were accepted for janitorial services for county offices, but the issue was always a non-starter with constitutional officers.
“The judges and the courthouse didn’t want strange people in there with all their documents lying around,” Commissioner Ron Handley said in November 2015.
“They have confidential records,” Elwell said, “so they had to have bonded folks.”
“The property appraiser also felt kind of the same way, and the tax collector was against it, and that kind of killed it,” Brooks said. “There wasn’t enough area left to make it worthwhile for the company to bid on.”
Elwell pointed out in November that the county privatized tourism by replacing tourism director John Scherlacher with a contract with Gray Dog Communications.
Brooks and Elwell said privatizing libraries was a non-starter.
“We haven’t seen any progress on that,” Elwell said. “And we have not heard of any other counties going in that direction.”
“We’ve let that go to a back burner,” Brooks said.
Staffers looked at Sumter Counter, which has privatized its library. “There really wasn’t a lot of areas that they could save us money,” Brooks said. Highlands libraries access state money because they lead a six-county regional coalition.
The county continues to look at farming out Healthy Families, a home visitation program for expectant parents and parents of newborns. The program is designed to educate parents and improve childhood outcomes. An Aug. 2 note from County Administrator June Fisher to commissioners said, “holding periodic meetings with interested parties and non-profits to continue the discussion of partnership opportunities.”
Commissioners un-privatized the county attorney’s office. Last year, Ross Macbeth was in private practice and billed the county an average of $246,000 per year.
Commissioners decided to advertise for an in-house attorney with five years of experience in the public sector and 10 years of practice. In a February 2015 advertisement, they set the salary from $81,681 to $133,140 annually. When Macbeth applied, however, he negotiated a $170,000 salary.
Commissioners also pressed for an assistant county attorney who could succeed Macbeth, so he hired Andrew Garrett at $80,000 a year. A paralegal is paid $45,675, and the office has an additional $16,879 office budget, plus insurance and employee benefits.
The legal department total 2015-16 budget was $354,710, and an $11,500 raise is planned this year.
Fleet maintenance – repairing the hundreds of cars and trucks used by the county, the sheriff’s office and all the constitutional officers – was studied. Road and Bridge Director Kyle Green submitted a report to Fisher, but Handley objected.
It’s easy to send 367 county cars and trucks for oil changes and lubes, but what happens if one needs a new engine, he asked.
Brooks suggested in November 2014 that in addition to farming out recycling to Progressive Waste Solutions, the county should ask if the garbage hauler wants to run the Highlands County landfill. Those two issues were married together, but separated when negotiations began on a recycling contract.
“We haven’t looked at that,” Brooks said. “We’re not going to get rid of the landfill, but it’s like anything else, the more volume you have, the more economical it is to run. We have no way of increasing volume, because we don’t take anything not generated in Highlands County. Instead of operating the landfill, we may be setting up a transfer a station, and take it to regional landfill somewhere, and save the cost of operating the landfill.” The nearest regional landfill is in Okeechobee County.
One side benefit came from talking about privatizing EMS. At the same time, Elwell suggested a study to determine whether changes are needed to fire and EMS.
The Fitch Report suggested EMS crews were too busy during peak hours. “We do need an additional ambulance,” Commissioner Jack Richie agreed.
Tuesday night, commissioners agreed to purchase an ambulance and staff it with a ninth crew. The crew will be stationed at EMS headquarters on George Boulevard.
“It could go to Avon Park or Sebring or south,” Brooks said. “Depends on call volume and location.”
That ninth crew could also be co-located at a fire department, Elwell said Tuesday. Initially, a co-located crew probably would not act as both EMS and firefighters.
“That’s years down the road,” Elwell said, “because that takes years of training.”
Elwell and Brooks agreed roads may be the best opportunity for future privatization. “We’ve utilized private contractors like Excavation Point, and they’ve done a lot of work for us in the past. Rather than hiring more county workers, I’d rather see it go to private contractors.”
In the past few months, commissioners have discussed how Highlands could surface unpaved roads and bring impassable roads into the county.
“If we are going to expand road and bridge, how much could be done by private companies,” Elwell said. “Government doesn’t need to be any bigger than it is today.”
Although several items – like janitorial services and fleet maintenance – have not made the final cut, none are off the list, Richie said. “We have to have a look from the inside, not outside people coming in and telling us what to do. I didn’t like that. What does Highlands County need? We need to hear that from Highlands County people.”
“We’re always open to suggestions,” Brooks said.
Copyright 2016 the Highlands Today