DARLINGTON — In a follow-up meeting to a meeting held Dec. 15 the Lafayette EMS Committee and Finance Committee met on Tuesday, Dec. 20 to iron out issues that arose from all twenty-eight municipalities receiving a bill for the operation of Lafayette EMS service.

Lafayette County EMS Service Director Shawn Phillips asked for more direction on how the county wishes to proceed. Phillips said, “Personally this is a county department entity and the county should put something towards. Maybe come up with some sort of formula, that would help me see what our per capita should be. I think we need to rework how we’re doing things.”

Supervisor Scott Pedley asked, “What changes are you proposing?”

Phillips answered, “A ratio between what the county and the municipalities chip in. Whether that be 90:10, 75:25 or 50:50. If it’s 90:10 then I will know that the municipalities will be paying 90% of this and then we can figure the per capita number.”

Committee Chair Bob Boyle asked what the 50:50 split looks like?

Phillips: “Based on our 2023 budget it would be $194,628 for the county and $194,628 for the municipalities (using the service). Per capita that would be $42.05. If you went to 75:25 it would be $291,942 for the municipalities and $97,314 for the county, which would make the per capita $63.07. Using 90:10 would be $350,230 for the municipalities and $38,925 for the county, leaving the per capita number at $71.12. If the county chipped in nothing your looking at $84.09 per capita. My experience working in larger cities the $84.09 is not too far off to what they charged when I was there.”

Lafayette County Chairman, Jack Sauer said, “Well, this needs to be funded one way or another. We need to get the contract to have 30 days notice. It will give us better control at budget time and not having to tax other municipalities for it.”

Darlington Mayor Mike McDermott said, “It’s set up for another year out. We have $557,000 on the books and not knowing how much of that we will receive or collect. That could make a big difference.”

Sauer said, “Looking at these receivables from Medicare, personal insurance or private pay — it may take three years to get that money or not get anything at all. I’d rather set the per capita at $84.09, as far as the county chipping, some municipalities are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I don’t remember what the library charges the county, but I think it’s more than what this was. I don’t know how many people use the library, I haven’t used the library since I was in high school. We’re taxing almost $2 million for Human Services. I haven’t sent kids to school for quite some time, almost 20 years and I’m still paying for everything at the school, that’s just the way it is. The only time you hear people bellyache about that is when they want to build a new school.”

Sauer continued, “I don’t know if I said it the other night, there’s a lot of these places that are trying to go with an ambulance service at the lowest bid and some of them pay zero. That will not continue. If you want good service and your life is worth something. I’m willing to pay $168 next year, I’ve never used the ambulance in my life either, probably a lot of us haven’t. What we have to ask is what is a life worth? I guess some of these townships and villages don’t think it’s worth much. This is something that will be here to stay, it will be used more, just like it is across the county and state.”

Sauer: “I’d like to make one more comment you can put in the paper — as far as the people saying this is a Darlington thing. Mike McDermott was not the Mayor when a lot of this took place. But the then mayor and city council backed the Rural Medical volunteers to the hilt. It was some of the townships and namely one that’s not in this service anymore that raised the most hell (not Darlington Township). I’m not here sticking up for Darlington, because many of the people on that city council, I didn’t care for their politics and most of them didn’t care for me, because we bought the Co. K Building and moved Human Service out of their white castle across the street. I’m sure I’m not very popular in the City of Darlington. This is not a Darlington thing, this is a township thing. There’s a couple on the city council that didn’t want to get in the Lafayette EMS. There’s still one on there that gets on the computer and is bellyaching about it and bellyaching about the cost. This is a Lafayette County thing. We’re not going to send out a sheet of paper asking if Argyle Township wants to be included in Human Services or Veteran Services, it’s kind of a all-for-one deal here. That’s the way counties operate.”

Sauer: “I hope to live long enough to see a lot of these townships, whether they think so or not, come into this service. I was talking to someone last night and pointed out something I didn’t think about. This is like school consolidation. I’ve been a school consolidation preacher for a long time. If you guys think your getting screwed by the county look at your tax bill and see how much your small school is costing you. Their building on to schools for twenty students to graduate — that’s not sustainable. We’re getting rear ended big time by the school districts. You want to save money — school consolidation is where it’s at. And we’re terrible people for bringing in a county-wide ambulance service, that anyone can get into. Everybody screams and hollers that they don’t think they need to, well look at the real world here folks. Governor Evers knows that people are going to get into this and will have to get into this. They are looking at money from the state. Then it will be out of our hands.”

Sauer: “These small schools can’t do it anymore when they graduate 20 kids and 19 leave town, that’s why you can’t get volunteers anymore. In our area you can’t find people to work if you pay them, how are you going to find them when you ask them to work for nothing? I think we need to move forward and fund it with how it’s set-up for 2023 and in 2024 we have time to see what we’re going to do. I think the $84.09 for a per capita charge for the year is what we should set it at. If people think that’s exorbitant, let them go somewhere else.”

Sauer: “The free lunch these townships are receiving is going to end one of two ways. Green County EMS is going to decide they can’t afford to serve these entities or someone is going to end up dead. I didn’t realize until after the meeting last night, that one of the townships waited for 40 minutes for Green County EMS and then they called us.”

Pedley asked Phillips, “Why didn’t we discuss this formula during budget time? Had it not crossed your mind until all this recent controversy?”

Phillips: “Part of the problem is the contract that states we can’t change the per capita for a year. That needs to change.”

Pedley: “I’ve spoken to corporate council about the county being able to tax the municipalities. It appears that it’s indisputable that the county has the authority to tax for EMS and it doesn’t matter if two or ten thousand people are being served. That statute is mute on numbers, contrary to the misleading statements that were made at the last meeting.”

More discussion was had. Trying to figure what motion could be made. Census numbers for Lafayette EMS coverage area are 4,629.

A meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 27 at 6:00 p.m. for the entities using the Lafayette EMS service to discuss changing the contract from one year to 30 days to change the per capita rate.

No motions were made.

●  Call numbers: 30 calls in the month of December, 19 of those were 911 calls, 4 blood draws, 7 transfers and declined 4 transfers. Year-to-date 410 total calls, 277 were 911 calls, 46 blood draws and 85 transfers with 60 declined transfers. Comparing the final six months in 2021 to the final six months in 2022 the service is up 33 calls.

●  Revenue in October 2022 — billed out $557,054 and collected $113,380.

●  Phillips (answering recent emails) noted that a line item in the past financials that listed over $300,000 as CIP, was a record of the capital assets from Rural Medical and not a loan.

●  Phillips noted that a recent call that was billed at $1,900 to Medicare and only $110 was paid for the bill. The service lost money on the bill.