BOCC navigating county’s EMS situation

WALLACE — The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners held a teleconference on Monday morning where they initiated conversations concerning Shoshone County’s emergency medical services needs.

Last month, The Shoshone County EMS Corp announced that it intended to terminate its contract with Shoshone County by the end of May, leaving behind a sizable hole in Shoshone County’s ambulatory services due to the behind-the-scenes work that the EMS Corp did.

Monday morning’s conference was a discussion among the BOCC to determine what their next course of action would be to ensure that Shoshone County continues to maintain the currently enjoyed level of service.

“We’re recognizing that we liked our service, it met our community needs,” BOCC chairman Mike Fitzgerald said. “We’ve got good people doing the work, but it’s underfunded to the point that the corporation, if they stayed at this pace, were not going to be a corporation for much longer.”

The EMS Corp’s contract with the county is set to terminate on May 30, which puts the BOCC in the position of responsible party for the county’s ambulatory services.

In its current form, the bulk of local ambulance services are carried out through a series of service agreements between Shoshone County, the EMS Corp, Shoshone County Fire District No. 1, Shoshone County Fire District No. 2 and neighboring counties.

The contract between Shoshone County and the EMS Corp has the county paying them $5,000 a month. In exchange, the EMS Corp has maintained the mandatory certifications necessary to operate ambulance services and performed administrative/fiscal duties such as billings, collections, record keeping, ambulance personnel training, medical supply purchasing and vehicle maintenance.

The fiscal issue is that the EMS Corp has been operating at a loss for a while now and cannot continue to do so.

The most plausible and likely course of action will be to abandon the current three-entity format — county, EMS Corp and fire districts — and create a new taxing district.

This situation lines up almost perfectly with the passage and signing of Idaho Senate Bill 1332, which gives counties the ability to create a new set of statute to regulate the act of creating or operating an ambulance district, which will be effective July 1, 2020.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Carl Crabtree (R. Idaho, District 7) and was signed into law by Gov. Brad Little on March 19.

While the stars may be aligning for Shoshone County to create and establish a new ambulance district, there are several potential obstacles that the county would need to clear.

The May 30 deadline from the EMS Corp and the bill’s July 1 effective date leave the county without service for the month of June, but the main concern (as always) in Shoshone County will be figuring out the supplementation of a new taxing district.

“People really do like the level of service, but the problem is coming down to collections and getting the community to supplement it,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re going to have to come up with and decide on a philosophy on how we’re going to approach this. If we’re happy with certain things we need to say what they are and then we need to talk about what we’re going to go fix.”

Right now, the county levies $86,000 to support the current system, but believes that $130,000 is probably the amount needed to maintain current operations and levels of service.

According to Idaho code, to create a taxing district, the BOCC would need to see a signed petition with a certain number of signatures and then it would need to be discussed publicly before a decision could be made.

During this planning period, Shoshone County — and some Kootenai County — residents should not worry about a drop in ambulance coverage or a decrease in quality of service.

The BOCC has plans to meet next Monday morning to potentially come up with their plan.

The News-Press will continue to follow any upcoming meetings as a resolution is sought.