By Rebecca Mahoney
Orlando Sentinel
Copyright 2007 Sentinel Communications Co.
DeLAND, Fla. — Volusia County’s ambulance service is running out of money and may be forced to pull some ambulances off the streets unless it finds a way to make up its budget shortfall, EVAC officials said.
The ambulance service is asking Volusia County for at least $1.2 million, the amount it says it needs to make it through the year and give its employees a competitive wage.
If EVAC doesn’t get at least part of the money by July 27, it may begin curtailing some services, including discontinuing its policy of standing by at active fires, EVAC Executive Director Michael Mellon wrote this month in a letter to county officials.
“When you recognize you have a problem, you have a moral obligation to inform your stakeholders. It would have been irresponsible for EVAC not to have let the county know where we are at,” said EVAC spokesman Mark O’Keefe.
County officials have already agreed to keep EVAC in the black this year but are balking at the idea of awarding raises when other county agencies may be facing cutbacks.
They have also asked an auditor -- not EVAC -- to determine how much money the agency needs this year.
“We support EVAC. Our commitment is clearly to supply enough money to keep the same level of service,” said County Manager Jim Dinneen, who also sits on EVAC’s board of directors. “But we’re not in a position to be talking about raises here.”
EVAC is a county-owned nonprofit ambulance service that served 73,000 patients last year. It is funded partially by fees collected through Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance; the rest is subsidized by the county.
But in the past 10 years, new laws have made it harder for EVAC to collect reimbursements from those insurance programs, forcing it to rely on the county for more money.
“It’s a problem every ambulance company in the entire country is facing,” O’Keefe said.
Although EVAC and the county have long enjoyed a harmonious relationship, the situation has created some tension recently.
At issue is a new study that shows EVAC paramedics are paid an average of $4,500 less and work up to four times harder than other area paramedics, making it harder for EVAC to retain employees.
The study was commissioned by the county last fall after EVAC asked for a subsidy of $3.5 million, some of which would have been used to give employees a raise.
The county agreed to pay only about half of what EVAC asked for, and said it would revisit the issue once the study was concluded.
But the study came back two months ago, and so far the county has not responded to the wage issue.
“To tell you the truth, it’s not as high a priority as it once was,” said Dinneen, who added that he wanted to wait until state lawmakers decide whether they are going to cut property taxes before moving on the EVAC issue.
Volusia stands to lose up to $55 million in revenue if the Legislature slashes taxes, he said.
“Even if there’s some justification to what they [EVAC] is saying, I’m not in a position to be offering them more for raises,” Dinneen said. “How do you cut the jail [budget], cut the sheriff [budget] and give them a raise? It doesn’t work, even if I wanted it to.”
County officials visibly bristled on Thursday when part of Mellon’s letter was read aloud during the County Council’s meeting.
“If there’s an expectation that we’d automatically approve that [wage increase] -- that was never the agreement,” Dinneen told the County Council members. “Someone doesn’t understand English.”
For now, Dinneen said he will revisit the issue when auditors conclude their study, likely in a few weeks.
Dinneen said he has no time frame for addressing the wage issue.
“If we see them falling behind, we will keep them in the black,” said County Chairman Frank Bruno, who also sits on EVAC’s board of directors. “For now, that’s where we’re at.”