By Stephen Smoot
During the quarterly HCEAA meeting, Board members and others held a discussion concerning the merits of campaigning for a levy, raising the fee, or using some combination of both options. With the costs of maintaining emergency response units continuing to rise significantly with no end in sight and staffing a consistent concern, officials have concluded that local ambulance authorities need added revenues.
From where to get them serves as the question.
Roger Vacovsky, administrative liaison with HCEAA, delivered an exploratory committee report on increasing revenues. He reported that all three ambulance agencies serving Hardy County require additional funding to provide an appropriate level of service.
The committee researched levy and fee options to choose which to pursue in the coming year, then came up with a recommendation on how to proceed. Vacovsky shared that he met with Loretta Humbertson, Hardy County Clerk, and also Jim Wratchford. He and the committee studied the numbers provided for the overall tax base, accounts that pay the current fee, and “what the various options look like.”
Both options have positive aspects to recommend them, but also negatives to consider.
Vacovsky’s committee expressed a preference for relying on expansion of the fee. He explained that the problem with a levy lay in the legally mandated sunset. “All of the work that would go into campaigning, my heart of hearts tells me five years later, it wouldn’t get approved.
A neighboring county commission has expressed at different times in its meetings a reluctance to pursue a levy for the same reason. If passed once, the county would grow dependent on funding that could be taken out from under them the next time up for election.
The same level of effort, Vacovsky noted, would be required to get enough public support for the Hardy County Commission to adjust the fee upward. In that instance, only two commissioners’ approval would pass it. More importantly, it could only be removed by another Commission vote.
Vacovsky provided numbers to help to state his case. He explained that the fee currently charges an average of $135 per account. Increasing that average by an average of $19 in the 724 accounts that pay the fee would generate $141,000 of revenue. He was quick to point out that “I’m not suggesting that $19 is the right number,” but wanted to show what was possible.
Additionally, he stated that HCEAA needs “a true business style budget based on ‘here’s what we need to do’” and also added that they should “do it incrementally, like a manual.” Creating a detailed budget with prioritized needs would “build up that projection and make it impossible to not give it to us.”
“Each of the agencies,” he also said “we should work together to build that up as well.”
A number of emergency response personnel attended and some questioned why the exploratory committee did not favor the levy. Vacovsky replied “I don’t think a levy will pass.” He also stated that nothing prevented a two-track approach to pursue both options, but that each would require a different style of campaigning.
Board member Fran Welton shared that she had helped with successful school levies and made suggestions on how that could be duplicated. Flanigan reminded the Board and other attendees, however, that a levy required 60 percent to pass.
“Then after five years, you have to pass it again,” she reminded the group. Paul Lewis, Office of Emergency Management Director, said that a “levy can only go up to a certain percentage.”
“It’s up to the Board,” said Vacovsky, who then said “either way, it will take a year.” He explained that doing the preliminary work of creating a budget would serve as the first step, providing information for a campaign. “If you have a budget, you can show exactly what is needed.”
Steve Schetrom, Board President, stated “the way you presented it makes sense.” Schetrom, as Hardy County Commission President, would have one of the three votes to pass or reject an expanded fee.
Derek Alt, Executive Director of HCEAA, discussed the two-track approach. “Nothing says you can’t do a fee and a levy. Explore the option of a levy while having a fee.” He stated that “the plan with the last levy” lay in looking at a fee as “a backup.”
Alt shared why he favored a fee, saying “it does put a Commission at risk” but “they can set it to what it needs to be to meet the demand.” He also addressed what Welton said about the successful school levies by saying that county citizens much more easily support school levies because “when it’s about the children, they’re all about it.” Vacovsky added that school levies have no five year limit.
Arguments for the levy over the fee reflected that the levy comes from both personal property and real estate taxes, drawing from a larger base. Conversely, the fee comes from a much smaller number of payers and leaves larger numbers of people not mandated to pay anything at all.
Welton made the point that too many in the public had the impression that if they paid for either a levy or a fee that they could get ambulance rides at no charge. A single trip in an ambulance could cost an uninsured patient $1,500 or more, over 10 times the average ambulance fee charged in Hardy County.
The Board made no decision at the time which option to support.
