By Hannah Poukish
The Tribune
SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY, Calif. — Dozens of local paramedics, fire and public health officials packed San Luis Obispo County’s government building on Tuesday to watch supervisors receive an update on its ambulance services contract.
Many in the crowd called for the county to drop its current plan to move forward with a competitive bidding process for ground emergency ambulance transport — a process that could result in San Luis Ambulance losing the contract its held since 1945.
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San Luis Ambulance paramedic Chad Robertson compared the provider to the beating heart of the community’s public health and safety community.
“I’m not suggesting our EMS system is perfect or shouldn’t evolve, but there’s a difference between improving a system and disrupting relationships that have made it successful,” Robertson said during nearly an hour of public comment. “Like the human body, when the heart and all those systems are working together, you just don’t disrupt the balance without a very good reason.”
For the first time in October 2025, the SLO County Board of Supervisors voted to launch a request-for-proposal process for ground medical transport. Requests for proposals, or RFPs, are a common government practice in San Luis Obispo County with the county frequently putting contracts out to bid to obtain the best services and costs.
San Luis Ambulance will be vying for the contract along with a Paso Robles -led proposal for a public-private partnership, known as an Alliance model. Other companies could also contend once the RFP is released.
But the decision to put the contract out to bid has rattled and divided public safety professionals across the county.
Many employees in San Luis Ambulance’s 160-person workforce have been outspoken opponents, citing their tight-knit company culture and a deep devotion to saving local lives that they fear could be upended.
Other community members have criticized the private company for its lagging response times. From May 2025 through May 2026, San Luis Ambulance had to pay more than $47,000 in penalties after it failed to meet contractual response-time requirements.
Recently, six city councils, all seven city managers and the San Luis Obispo County Fire Chiefs Association expressed their support for Paso Robles to submit a public-private partnership proposal.
Grover Beach City Council member Jules Tuggle argued it was time for the decades-old contract to be reevaluated to ensure the county receives top-tier medical services.
“This conversation is not about whose name is on the side of the ambulance,” she said during public comment. “This conversation is about the contract, the contract that defines the scope and manner of service, and it is a conversation that will allow the community to decide what we demand.” What’s next for SLO County’s ambulance services RFP?
The county’s emergency medical services agency sent the first draft of the RFP to the state last January.
The state returned the revised draft RFP in early August, and the county resubmitted it on Oct. 15 . The final approval is estimated to take around 90 days, the staff report said.
The RFP is expected to be released in late January 2027, though it could be delayed. Applicants will have four months to complete the competitive bidding process, including submitting letters of intent, proposals and oral presentations.
Each proposal will then be reviewed and scored in line with the criteria outlined in the RFP by an independent committee composed of representatives from outside-the-county EMS, fire, ambulance transport, hospital administrator and public health officials.
The committee will recommend a proposal, and the chosen bidder will receive “a notice of intent to award” them the contract, which will then be followed a month-long appeal period, the report said. Afterward, county counsel and the supervisors would approve the agreement. Some supervisors uncertain about putting contract up to bid
A few San Luis Obispo County supervisors expressed uncertainty about going through with the competitive bidding process.
Supervisors Heather Moreno and John Peschong initially voted against moving forward with the RFP process, and on Tuesday, Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said she had grown “very nervous” about it, particularly with looming healthcare costs rising due to HR 1, also known as One Big Beautiful Bill.
Paso Robles city manager Chris Huot previously told The Tribune that the public-private model would be a more transparent system that funnels excess revenue back into the community.
However, not all public-private partnership models have been immediately successful elsewhere in the state.
In Sonoma County, the county fire district recently requested a 16% ambulance rate increase due to increased labor costs and operating expenses paired with reimbursement issues, the Press Democrat reported.
If SLO County adopts the model, participating cities would also have to initially front the start-up costs until insurance payments kick in and reimburse them.
“There’s just so many pieces that could just fall through, and that’s my fear,” Ortiz-Legg said. “I want to make sure everybody’s OK in this room, but I really want to make sure that we go forth with this big decision and with our eyes wide open.”
Supervisor Heather Moreno proposed that the county undertake a “parallel path” while continuing with the RFP process.
That would look like having county staff develop an analysis of the competitive bidding process vs. what contract amendments could potentially look like if San Luis Ambulance remains its medical transport provider, county counsel Jon Ansolabehere explained.
It would essentially be a “pros and cons of each approach,” he said.
Supervisors passed a motion Tuesday to have staff analyze the two approaches.
At a future board meeting, once the RFP is finalized, supervisors will decide whether to go through with the competitive bidding process at all.
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