County Commission votes to proceed with ambulance district

The Hill County Commission met with representatives from the Rudyard Ambulance Service and the City of Havre Wednesday and voted unanimously to proceed with making plans to implement a county-wide ambulance district which will require approval from voters in the next general election.

The City of Havre said in a letter in February to the Hill County Commission, which also funds the service in Rudyard, that they believe the county is not contributing an equitable amount of funding to the Havre Ambulance Service. The letter said the county pays for 5 percent of the city ambulance services while 28 percent of the calls the service responds to come from outside the city limits.

At a meeting last week to discuss the issue, the city and county decided to look into creating a county-wide ambulance district.

Before the vote Wednesday details of this proposed district were discussed and the idea gained vocal support from nearly everyone in attendance.

"I guess I'm in favor of county-wide, it's going to take care of all the ambulances and the services in the county," said Lowell Strissel of the Rudyard Ambulance Service.

Havre Clerk and Finance Director Doug Kaercher said the ambulance service requires between $650,000 and $675,000 to meet the needs of the county and this would result in a county-wide levee of approximately 15.85 mills resulting in $21.40 per year in taxes for a property valued at $100,000.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said implementing a county widelevee instead of a split district is advantageous because if the Rudyard service ever collapsed due to a lack of volunteers, Havre's district wouldn't need to annex it, a process that would require a lot of work on the part of the county and would likely require a public vote.

Hill County Treasurer Sandy Brown agreed with that assessment. It's better to do the district now so it doesn't have to be addressed later.

"I mean, you can figure out the percentages of who needs what, but put it to the county," Brown said.

Kaercher said more work would be needed to get a precise number, but Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong said a decision would have to be made about whether or not to officially pursue the idea before any of that work could be done.

Peterson asked Strissel to evaluate their needs in the coming years so Kaercher's numbers can be finalized.

"We're going to need to know what your needs are in two years, five years and 10 years if you will," Peterson said.

Kaercher said this would be a very important part of the process that could prevent further votes from being needed in the future.

"I agree with that, I mean we don't want to get this number wrong," he said.

Peterson asked Strissel what the people living in the Rudyard district thought of the idea of a county-wide district.

Strissel said he did not have the numbers, but based on his interactions the attitude of the people was skeptical.

"The feeling up there was, when the city and county get together the county gets screwed," he said.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said she understood how folks living outside of Havre sometimes feel that way, but realistically looking at the cost of responding to calls from outside the city limits is more expensive, so the county may not be in such a bad position.

"Change is always difficult," Kaercher said, "but at the same time, if we don't do something, the level of service that's going to come out of Havre is going to be greatly reduced."

Kaercher said if a county-wide district was created the city would be able to relinquish many of the mills it currently uses to fund the ambulance service and both Rudyard and Havre's services will become sustainable.

The commission and other attendees supported the idea of holding public meetings in Rudyard with at least one commissioner there to answer people's questions. Peterson said people could bring the taxable value of their property and could get help to figure out how much this proposed levee would cost them.

Kaercher said calculating the cost of agriculture ground can be a bit more complicated so if people want to know what it will cost them each year, they need to find their most recent tax statement, find the taxable value and base their calculation on that.

McLean proposed holding meetings in Rudyard and Havre on the week of the July 13, but no solid plans were made.

Peterson said he wants the people of Rudyard to have a clear idea of what they would be getting out of this arrangement.

Havre Mayor Tim Solomon said providing an exact percentage of what Rudyard would be getting in terms of funding may be difficult and may set the precedent that every time it was practical to change that percentage, it would have to go for another general election vote and that it would be more practical to put that responsibility in the hands of the ambulance district's theoretical board.

The creation of an ambulance district board was also discussed at the meeting.

Brown said the board would need to be made up of neutral people, but Solomon said both Rudyard and Havre's ambulance services should have representation on it.

No decisions were made about the particulars of how the board would be set up.