Both men running to represent District 2 on the Fremont County Commission this year said the local ambulance system should be the No. 1 priority for county government currently.
“It’s something we need, (and) what we’re doing hasn’t been working well,” Shoshoni Mayor and District 2 challenger Joel Highsmith said during a Republican Party Primary Election Candidate Forum this month. “The average is over a 40-minute wait … for an ambulance here in Shoshoni.”
The situation is so dire that Highsmith said he chose to call a family member instead of an ambulance when he experienced a medical emergency while hunting above Lost Cabin recently.
“We’ve got no ambulance service,” he said. “It’s better to drive myself than try to rely on what we would get.”
Incumbent Commissioner Larry Allen, who is running for re-election to District 2, said, “Part of the problem is that we are not mandated by the state, or any other agency, (to) provide ambulance service for the entire county.”
“Currently it is not deemed as an essential service by the state,” Allen said. “If it is, it would require us to provide ambulance service – or somehow an ambulance service would be provided.”
After speaking with state lawmakers, however, Allen said the responsibility of providing a mandated ambulance service would most likely fall to local governments.
“Five out of the six legislators told me that if the Legislature deems it an essential service, they’ll put the funding requirements back on the county,” Allen said.
Regardless, Highsmith said he would be in favor of declaring ambulance an essential service in Wyoming, expressing confidence that, “if we’re forced to do it, we’ll figure out how to fund it.”
“It should be mandated,” Highsmith said. “Then (we’ll) work out … how we fund it.”
A sales tax could help, Highsmith said, but he also pointed to the proposal to divert revenue from the local half percent sales tax for economic development to support the ambulance service, if the tax is renewed this fall.
“That could help the county out quite a bit,” Highsmith said.
Allen also talked about the proposal to help fund the local ambulance service using half percent sales tax revenues, but he added that he doesn’t support renewing that tax “the way it’s currently written.”
In fact, he said, “The commissioners were never in favor of the half cent … because of the wording on the ballot.”
“We wanted a more direct definition on how the tax should be spent,” he explained.
Highsmith, by contrast, said he does support the half percent sales tax, and the proposal to incorporate ambulance funding in the revenue distribution agreement.
“If the people vote for it, I support that,” he said. “I’d rather see some of that half cent money spent on that, (rather) than raising our property tax.”
A new law was passed last year allowing counties to form special ambulance districts so they could levy property taxes to help fund the service.
Fremont County had “lobbied” for the special district option, Allen said, but “at this time” the commission has decided “not to ask for a tax, because people are already up to their eyeballs in taxes.”
Another option is to combine the resources of county, municipal and Tribal governments to cover the costs of a mandated ambulance service, Allen said, pointing out that, “currently we have no financial help from the Tribes or any other municipality.”
The county could also “go to the voters (and) ask for an additional 1 cent” sales tax to pay for ambulance service, Allen said, but “right now with the property valuations and property tax situation, we chose not to do that.”
Instead, he said, the county recently applied for and received a $1 million grant from the Wyoming Department of Health to support emergency ground transportation.
Fremont County currently pays about $2.3 million per year to provide ambulance services locally, Allen noted, including about $500,000 annually just to cover Dubois – a town that generates an average of about seven ambulance calls each month.
“I would support some legislation – some sort of avenue that we can take – to help us with the funding,” Allen said.
He also expressed support for legislative action to “backfill” the revenue losses local governments will experience as a result of the property tax relief measures the Legislature approved this year.
“The trouble we have is, the legislature approves these bills (with) no plans to … reimburse the counties for their shortfalls,” he said. “I mean, it looks good on paper, (but) without a backfill, we’re going to continue to lose money and end up maybe cutting some services eventually.”
Highsmith agreed that “we need to put pressure on the Legislature to have them backfill” the property tax revenue shortfall.
“They’ve got to prioritize some of that (instead of keeping) $1 billion in savings,” he said. “I believe the state has the fidelity (to) help the counties and the municipalities on this. I believe the funding is there. They’ve just got to have the will.”
Highsmith said he decided to run for Fremont County Commission District 2 because “there’s been a few things that went on with the county that I wasn’t too happy with.”
“The taxation of our medical clinic was a big issue for us; we felt that was unfair,” he said. “(And) we’ve tried to get an ambulance here in Shoshoni, unsuccessfully, from the county. So we have acquired one ourselves, and right now we are in the process of waiting for the state to certify us. We haven’t had good response with the county as willing to work with us on that at all.”
He also expressed disappointment that Allen hasn’t spent more time networking with Shoshoni-area residents.
“I haven’t seen him in my office one time, and I’m in my sixth year as mayor,” Highsmith said. “I’ve talked to the mayor in Dubois – same sentiment. Mayor from Pavillion – same sentiment. That’s why I’m running. … We need to talk to our constituents – the people that elect us – about what’s important to them. We need to pay attention to the people that elect us here in District 2. And that’s what I’ll do. (I) would spend more time talking to the people that elect me.”
Allen, who has served on the Commission since 2013, said he doesn’t always “get to certain areas” in District 2 because Fremont County is so large.
“I get some comments about, ‘Well, you’re not in Shoshoni every day, you’re not in Dubois, you’re not in Jeffrey City,” Allen said. “(But) there’s more things that go on in the other parts of the county than just in my district that you have to pay attention to.”
He might not “stop in at the mayor’s office all the time,” but Allen said over the last four years he put 177,000 miles on his vehicle, mostly for “just strictly county business.”
“I try my best to represent our district as well as the rest of the county,” he said. “If you’re there just to represent District 2, you’ll have an awful lot of idle time.”
Highsmith and Allen participated in two candidate forums this month.
To watch the forum that took place July 11 in Shoshoni, click here.
To watch the forum that took place July 18 in Dubois, click here.
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