Sticker shock

The annual subsidy request from Aspirus to cover the shortfall in the ambulance service drew the ire of some members of the county’s law enforcement committee on Monday morning.

Under the previous agreement between Taylor County and Aspirus, the county was responsible for covering up to 45% of the shortfall of providing the service. This comes as an annual subsidy in the beginning of the calendar year. This year’s subsidy request was $986,950 which is $294,750 over what had been budgeted for this year’s subsidy by the county.

According to Bob Kirkley of Aspirus, salaries and benefits was the driver behind such a sharp increase this year compared to last year. He noted that budget areas were actually below budget including supplies and education expenses. However, there were also significant drops on the revenue side with the number of overall runs lower than projected resulting in a $311,940 loss in See COUNTY on page 4 ambulance revenue (down 20.6%) and a $212,520 drop in Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements (a 24% drop from budget).

Even with the revenue reductions, the major factor contributing to the increase in county expense was a 49.3% increase in the salaries and benefits going from a budget of $1.3 million to actual costs of $1.9 million.

The increase should not have been a major surprise to the county. In the face of decreasing volunteer on-call emergency medical technicians, the county had directed Kirkley to fill shifts with full time staff and offer overtime and critical coverage pay to get the shifts filled. Under the contract terms, the county was responsible for 45% of those expenses.

Kirkley had warned the committee at the beginning of the year about the potential for increased personnel costs and again when the additional service hours were requested to improve coverage.

Committee member Lori Floyd disagreed saying that Aspirus failed to live up to its side of the agreement.

“They were in violation of the contract,” Floyd said, noting that it is clear to her the intent of the contract was to have 24 hour coverage in each of the three locations in Rib Lake, Medford and Gilman. “It was clear in the contract,” she said.

“Aspirus was in violation of our contract,” she said. Regardless of anyone’s interpretation of the prior contract, county finance director Larry Brandl advised the committee that they needed to approve paying the subsidy request and had no real option to get put of paying it. He said he brought it forward as an agenda item so that the committee was aware of it. “The general fund will have to absorb that,” he said.

“There is nothing we can do,” Brandl said.

“I don’t see where we have a lot of choice there,” agreed committee member Chuck Zenner.

This is the last time the county will have to pay a subsidy amount. Under the new contract which was approved by the committee in December and which has been what the service has been operating under since the beginning of the year, the county will be paying a fixed contracted rate for ambulance coverage form Aspirus for an annual cost of about $1.9 million.

“We addressed it categorically,” said county attorney Courtney Graff. Committee members voted unanimously to approve the subsidy payment.

In related action, committee members went into closed session for additional contract negotiation for the ambulance contract to consider a possible amendment to the contract.

After more than a half hour in closed session, committee members came into open session and approved amending the contract to increase the number of full time equivalency positions by three.

The contract, as amended, will go to the full county board for action at the March 19 meeting.

In other business, committee members:

 Gave approval for Sheriff Larry Woebbeking to fill a deputy position that will become open when the current K-9 officer leaves county employment. While it is possible to retrain the K-9 to serve a new master, this will be the dog’s third handler since it was purchased. Woebbeking noted the dog is about halfway through its expected service life and he sought the committee’s input on the possibility of selling the dog to the law enforcement agency that handler is going to if they are interested and putting that toward the purchase of a new dog. Committee members were supportive of that idea. There was also discussion about having contract language which would give the county a way to recover the training and property upgrade investments made for K9 handlers when they leave county employment prematurely. The K9 officer signs a five-year agreement but it focuses on the care of the dog rather than other details about leaving county employment early. “It can be done,” Graff said of putting the language in the agreement, however she questioned at what point would anyone be willing to sign up to do the job if there was significant risk to them for leaving.

 Received word of a 700 gallon diesel fuel spill that occurred on March 8 at a filling station near Rib Lake when a valve failed. Emergency Management Coordinator Daniel Gellert said he was notified several hours after the spill happened and described it as being a significant spill of diesel fuel and a contractor was brought in for it.