By Jim Johnson
Monterey County Herald
Copyright 2007 The Monterey County Herald
All Rights Reserved
SALINAS, Calif. — After months of waiting, supervisors could finally get a look at a much-anticipated ambulance system redesign plan next month. And a new tax measure to pay for it could be ready for the June ballot.
That’s according to county Emergency Medical Services Director Tom Lynch, who teamed up with Carmel Valley fire Chief Sidney Reade to present an update on the plan to the supervisors Tuesday.
A special EMS task force, chaired by Reade, was charged with developing options by the supervisors after current provider Westmed Ambulance Inc. announced early in the year that it had lost more than $2 million during its first year of local operations. Westmed is in the second year of a five-year contract with the county.
Lynch said the task force should be ready to present redesign options by early October, and if supervisors so choose, a ballot measure could be ready for their approval by January. The supervisors would need to approve the measure by then in order for it to make the June ballot.
In the meantime, supervisors appeared resigned to continuing their subsidy of Westmed once the present arrangement runs out at the end of February, though they have not yet formally agreed to do so.
The board approved a subsidy of nearly $1 million in March to maintain ambulance paramedic salaries and avoid further service cuts until the new system is in place. That followed a supervisor-approved loan of up to $1 million for Westmed and allowed the ambulance provider to relax response times in the more rural areas of the county.
“Best case scenario: We’re going to need the subsidy for a while,” Supervisor Simon Salinas said. Salinas and fellow Supervisor Dave Potter serve on the board’s EMS subcommittee and are overseeing the redesign.
The supervisors had originally hoped the redesign proposal would be done in time to have a new ambulance contract in place before the subsidy ran out. But EMS officials, who asked for extra time this summer to complete their work, now say that won’t happen.
“There’s nothing we can do” to put a new contract in place by the subsidy’s expiration, Reade told the supervisors Tuesday.
That means continuing the Westmed subsidy or absorbing further cuts to service, including a reduction of ambulance units on the road and even longer response times. But Salinas and other supervisors have said further service reductions are unacceptable.
On Tuesday, Reade told the board that the Community Services Area 74 parcel tax fund can’t pay for the county’s current ambulance system, even after the concessions made to Westmed earlier this year.
Reade said the task force is looking at funding options, including a surcharge for state parks that contribute to demand for emergency response but don’t currently contribute to CSA 74.
But she added that the CSA 74 parcel tax would probably still need to be increased depending on what kind of system the board approves. She also pointed out that the task force is working on a comprehensive redesign of the county’s entire emergency system, beyond ambulance response.
Salinas noted that any tax proposal would need the full support of all community stakeholders, including the various emergency responders, and he urged everyone to leave “hidden agendas” out of the process.
“It can’t work unless everybody’s on the same page,” Salinas said. “A two-thirds (approval) is very difficult to accomplish. It will require coming up with a game plan that everyone can get behind.”