EMS Cuts Considered in Texas

Aug. 08--CORSICANA -- Corsicana's ambulance service could stop responding to calls outside the city limits, or face longer ambulance response times, should Navarro County not agree to pay all of a $350,000 subsidy requested by the city.

That was the scenario mentioned as a possibility by Corsicana Mayor Chuck McClanahan Wednesday when he and City Manager Connie Standridge appeared at a Navarro County Commissioners Court budget workshop.

County Judge H.M. Davenport Jr. told the two city leaders the county understood the budgeting difficulties everyone is experiencing, and said the county had tentatively budgeted a $275,000 payment to the city for the annual ambulance subsidy. The city has requested $350,000 -- a $200,000 increase from the current subsidy of $150,000 paid by the county.

Asked by Davenport how the reduced funding amount would impact them, Standridge said "it would certainly impact the budget.

"I can't speak for the council, nor can the mayor speak for the entire council," she said. "I'll just have to take that back to them and see what they say."

"I would say that we would look at either just pulling back, and just doing city, or we'll look at reducing personnel, and 'mothballing' an ambulance, and then that would be that we're providing, instead of picking up your mother or your father in 15 minutes, it might be 20 or 25 minutes," McClanahan added. "That's the only two things I see that we can do."

"From an EMS standpoint, those are the two options," Standridge said.

The exchange came after a discussion about ambulance billing and collection rates, and how the city and county might be able to work together through the federal 1115 Waiver program that could bring federal dollars to the city to help cover some of its costs through the unreimbursed portion of the program, similar to the arrangement now in place between the county and Navarro Regional Hospital for indigent health care. Standridge told commissioners the city was compiling data as requested by the program, but was unsure when and how much would be received through the program.

Standridge told commissioners she looked at every write-off from the ambulance billing reports to determine whether or not the charge was billed correctly, or if there was something else that could be done to collect.

"We do put a lot of effort into trying to make sure our collections are where they should be," she said.

Following the meeting, McClanahan said his concern is being able to maintain the level of service the EMS program offers.

"In order to give the citizens of Corsicana and the citizens of Navarro County the service going forward that they have enjoyed in the past, it's going to require $350,000 from the county to make that happen," he said. "Anything less than the $350,000 is going to have to be a reduction in service and in response times, which is service."

McClanahan added that all five members of the council would be a part of any decision regarding a change in service.

Davenport said after the meeting he couldn't really speak to McClanahan's remarks about possible cutbacks.

"One of the things we've also noticed is that the cost of keeping those Class C prisoners (for the city) has been running around $26,000 a quarter," Davenport said. "If you add that up for the amount of money we took off what they requested ... we're just kind of balancing out on that."

County Auditor Kathy Hollomon also asked about the county's share of funding for the Economic Development Director's position -- one that's been vacant since May 31 when Lee McCleary left the post for a similar position in Red Oak. Commissioners had asked during the budget workshops about a possible rebate or credit for money already paid in the current budget, since the position was empty.

"I didn't come prepared to answer that," Standridge said, adding, "I can tell you that we are actively seeking an economic development director ... as well as some other activities."

McClanahan said efforts were also underway to use some of the unspent salary money to update some of the promotional and marketing materials being used in economic development efforts on behalf of the city and county.

"It would be helpful to us in order to be exact with the budget to know what our share of that cost was, and then we can verify what our budget should be for that," said Pct. 2 Commissioner Dick Martin.

Bob Belcher may be reached by email at bbelcher@corsicanadailysun.com.

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