(Lander, WY) – The Fremont County Commission approved a resolution Tuesday officially designating the Fremont County Association of Governments as the “lead entity” for local emergency medical services.
The decision came after the Commission voted earlier this month to transition local ambulance operations to a joint powers board.
This week’s resolution specified that FCAG would serve as that joint powers board – at least for now.
“Let’s see how it goes,” Commission Chairman Larry Allen said Tuesday. “And if we have some consternation and people upset that … this isn’t going the way we envisioned it, then we have a conversation (about) starting a joint powers board to oversee all this at a later time.”
“Now is not the time” to start a new joint powers board for local ambulance operations anyway, Allen noted, pointing out that applications for EMS funding through Wyoming’s Rural Health Transformation Program are due in a week or so.
The resolution the Commission approved Tuesday authorized FCAG to submit an application to that program, which offers funding in several different categories, including EMS Regionalization.
FCAG Administrator Tim Nichols said the EMS Regionalization grant offers $400,000 per provider to help cover “merger and acquisition costs,” $500,000 per provider for equipment, and $100,000 per provider for technology, plus options to support personnel needs.
The funding is meant to “create incentives for ground EMS agencies to regionalize and consolidate around sustainable revenue sources,” according to the guidelines for the EMS Regionalization grant, so the only applicants eligible to apply are entities that have already regionalized through consolidation, or “two or more ground EMS agencies that are applying together.”
For the local application, those two ground EMS agencies will be Shoshoni’s and Fremont County’s, Commissioner Mike Jones said – and FCAG could likely obtain an EMS agency license relatively quickly, too.
FCAG
Jones expressed support for FCAG overseeing ambulance operations this week, pointing out that the organization is made up of elected officials – currently mayors and commissioners – from throughout Fremont County who would be more accountable to local voters than an appointed board.
The group is expected to include representatives from the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes soon, too, he added.
Nichols said he anticipates receiving resolutions from the Tribal governments this week indicating their intention to engage with FCAG.
After that, he said FCAG will need to officially acknowledge that they are engaging in the process of adding Tribal representatives to the group – a process that requires approval from each governing body that currently participates in FCAG.
“It doesn’t sound like we’re going to have all that done (by) the end of the month,” Jones said, referring to the EMS Regionalization grant application deadline. “But I think we can demonstrate that parties are coming together around this topic and around this organization.”