By Jeff Robinson
The Idaho Falls Post Register
BINGHAM COUNTY, Idaho — Bingham County commissioners and Blackfoot officials ended a protracted public dispute Tuesday by signing a new five-year agreement to provide ambulance service to a large majority of county residents.
The two government entities had been at odds since November over how much each would have to pay to subsidize ambulance services for the Blackfoot/Snake River Ambulance Service Area, the largest of the county’s three ambulance districts.
The dispute began when the Bingham commissioners announced the county could not afford to renew the current contract, which required the county and city to split the district’s cost overruns.
Blackfoot firefighters were told April 2 that if an agreement wasn’t reached by May 23, half of them could be laid off. The fire department includes 24 firefighters, who are also trained to work as emergency medical technicians on city ambulances.
The crux of the dispute was about a $50,000 difference in what the city said it needed to run the ambulance service and what the county said it could fund via tax receipts.
While the commissioners struggled to understand how that amount equated to the layoffs of half the fire department, Blackfoot Fire Department Chief Kevin Gray said the budget shortage would have a dominolike effect in which more overtime would be required to cover the shifts of any laid off personnel.
"(Fifty-thousand dollars) might not sound like a lot of money, but it would have ended up being more,” Gray said, noting that the ambulance district covers about 80 percent of the county’s population.
Gray said public support for the firefighters in the form of calls to the county commissioners and letters to the editor helped reinforce the need to reach a solution.
Blackfoot Councilman Chris Jensen agreed.
“There was an unwillingness by the county commissioners to accept any over-budget expenses when it came to ambulance service,” Jensen said. “There is just no way to say it will cost ‘x’ next year for ambulance service when you can’t predict how many calls for service you’re going to get and you don’t know how many of those calls will be covered by private insurance or by Medicaid or Medicare.”
Jensen said city officials looked hard for areas to trim costs and make the agreement more feasible for both entities and that the commissioners recognized the effort.
“They finally got the idea we really were trying and that they needed to do a little trying themselves,” Jensen said.
County Commissioner Donavan Harrington doesn’t necessarily agree with Jensen’s assessment but said, “At the end of day, it was a compromise on both parts.”
He said the agreement allows the ambulance district to maintain a good service but added: “The real question we are talking about was $44,000. How did that equate for the loss of half of the fire department’s jobs? I just don’t think there was any justification for that kind of saber-rattling.”
The new five-year contract states that the city of Blackfoot, which oversees the ambulance district for the county, will get $500,000 in levied funds and hospital revenues from the county to provide ambulance services. Jensen likened the amount to an “availability fee.” The county’s contribution will increase by 3 percent per year over the length of the contract.
The agreement states, “In the event the levied funds and hospital revenues combined are less than $500,000 (plus escalation, as appropriate), the county will be responsible for the balance.”
One key change in the new agreement is that ambulance staff members will be assigned work in Bingham Memorial Hospital’s emergency room and intensive care units when not on call.
The inclusion of the hospital could provide an additional source of city revenue, as it calls for the hospital to reimburse the city on an hourly basis for the work the ambulance crews perform.
Harrington said the hospital stepping in to bridge the funding gap was what finally turned the tables.
The agreement with the hospital is being reviewed by the hospital’s lawyers.
In addition to providing the hospital with additional staff, the agreement also allows for the ambulance crews to receive advanced training from hospital staff.
“It is beneficial,” Gray said. “They always have good training opportunities over there.”
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