(Lander, WY) – The Fremont County Association of Governments has formed a new committee to explore potential funding options for three “key” local services – ambulance, public transportation and commercial air – following the failure of the optional half percent sales tax for economic development last year.
The Joint Committee on Funding Key Services has been meeting weekly for about a month, with their initial focus centered on ambulance funding, Committee Chair Mick Pryor told the Fremont County Commission this week.
“We’ve spent a lot of our time on ambulance service, just because we feel that it is the most important (of) those key services that FCAG wants us to focus on,” Pryor said during a Commission meeting Tuesday. “From a moral imperative standpoint, it is something that I think we would all agree we probably want to have in our county.”
Ambulance
Over the past several weeks, Pryor said the new committee has been gathering information about the local ambulance system and working to determine how much money it costs to operate the service.
The answer to the question has been “difficult (to) discern,” he said, because “we don’t have a really clear picture (of) what revenues are collected on behalf of the ambulance services by Frontier.”
“That’s the real black box here,” Pryor said.
Regardless, he said the committee was able to use information from the Wyoming Department of Health and other EMS agencies in the state to estimate that it costs more than $3.5 million annually to operate the local ambulance system.
By contrast, Pryor pointed out that Fremont County’s current budget only includes $1.8 million for ambulance services – prompting him to ask whether the Commission would be willing to let another entity, like a joint powers board, to oversee the local EMS system if an alternative “shared” funding source became available to help cover the costs.
For example, he said, “it might be worthwhile to fold (EMS) into a broader transportation type of entity,” like the Wind River Transportation Authority – the public transportation organization that has also been looking for a sustainable local funding source since the half-cent sales tax option failed last year.
The committee will continue to weigh those kinds of options over the coming weeks, Pryor said, noting that they have until mid-November to make a recommendation to FCAG.
“I am optimistic that we can find a solution that is amenable, both to the county as well as to local government,” he said.
This week, for instance, Pryor said the committee is set to learn about “regionalization” from the EMS director in Park County – a government entity that “took over” the private ambulance service that was previously in place there, then expanded the operation to cover Washakie, Hot Springs, and Big Horn counties as well.
“It looks like Park County is … getting pretty good at (regionalization),” Pryor said. “The hard part is – is this something that government should provide, (instead of) private industry?”
In his opinion, Pryor said, if a private company is “willing and able” to provide an ambulance service, they “absolutely” should – but if that private service requires a public subsidy, he is “a little bit more hesitant,” because it’s more difficult to audit a private company and “understand what our costs truly are.”
Commissioner Clarence Thomas weighed in on the question, too, pointing out that, in most major metropolitan areas, private companies can make “good money” running an ambulance service – but in a rural community like Fremont County, it’s more difficult for EMS to be profitable.
“That’s what has been our problem for a long time,” Thomas said. “But then do we … as a government take that on (with) taxpayer money?”
The Joint Committee to Fund Key Services will continue its work at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9, at the WRTA Facility, 2554 Airport Road in Riverton.
The meeting is open to the public for in-person attendance and will be streamed live on Zoom (Meeting ID: 875 4278 9880, Passcode: 391282).
“All committee members, advisors, invited guests, and interested community members are encouraged to attend as we continue the information-gathering and deliberation phase,” FCAG Administrator Tim Nichols said.
For more information, email Nichols at Timothy.Nichols@fcagwy.gov.