County commission nixes proposed ambulance district

The Hill County Commission changed course on its plans to create a county-wide ambulance district to make up for the service’s financial shortfall in favor of raising the county’s mill levies during a meeting Wednesday with representative from the City of Havre, as well as the Havre and Rudyard Ambulance Service met Wednesday morning.

City of Havre Finance and City Clerk Doug Kaercher has said the city has been subsidizing the ambulance service for years because the county, which accounts for 28 percent of ambulance calls, was paying far below that percentage for the service.

City of Havre Mayor Tim Solomon had sent numerous letters to the commission over the years asking that this situation be rectified, and in this year’s letter, sent back in February, he said, if the county didn’t respond the city would have to discontinue responding to calls outside the city limits.

For the last month, the Hill County Commission and representatives from the City of Havre had been moving toward creating a county-wide ambulance district, which would involve the creation of an ambulance board which would make decisions about fund allocation between the Havre Ambulance Service and the Rudyard Ambulance Service, as well as a county-wide levy of between 15 and 17 mills.

Kaercher said Wednesday afternoon this district would have taken responsibility for the ambulance service out of the hands of the city eliminating the subsidy the city has been contributed to the service and lowering city taxpayer’s financial responsibility for that service.

At Wednesday morning’s meeting the commission decided to change those plans entirely and to just raise the existing county ambulance levy from one mill to eight mills with six going to the Havre Ambulance Service and two going to the Rudyard Ambulance Service. The levy increase would exclude the incorporated cities of Havre and Hingham.

Wednesday afternoon, Kaercher said that a levy would absolutely make up for the shortfall the city was experiencing and would eliminate the subsidy the city had been making to the service, but the city’s impression until that meeting was that the county was moving toward the creation of a county-wide district and this change of heart was completely unexpected.

“I think it places it back into the situation where the operation is shouldered on the city again, but if this is the way the commission has chosen to go forward to fund their shortfall, that really was what the city’s intent was to begin with,” he said, “… I don’t think the city has a lot to complain about.”

Lowell Strissel of the Rudyard Ambulance Service said during the meeting that two mills would bring in a great deal of money for the Rudyard Service and would certainly be extremely helpful.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said in an interview Wednesday afternoon that the primary motivation the commission had for changing course was a general feeling of distrust he observed in the public toward the City of Havre.

“The people on the Hi-Line didn’t like being with the city, they don’t trust them,” he said.

Peterson said he’s observed this distrust among people he’s talked to in the past few weeks.

“It’s been coming from the public, there’s a lot of people out in the county that feel that,” he said, “… Usually it will come up just in conversation, ‘Well, I don’t trust them,’”

Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong suggested during the meeting that the commission stay the course and keep trying to create a county-wide district.

She said she’d spoken with MSU Extension Local Government Center Director Dan Clark who told her the creation of such a district was a bit late in the game, but she said, she thinks it’s a better long-term solution to the problem.

Armstrong also brought forward an alternative and said the commission could move to create an inter-local agreement between the City of Havre, Hill County and Rudyard which will create a board.

Kaercher said this would be effectively the same as creating a district.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said she prefers the mill increase solution because she believes it will be more palatable to voters, an argument Peterson later said he agrees with.

“It seems to me that people would be hard pressed to vote themselves 16 mills when they could vote themselves 7.5,” McLean said.

Armstrong said during the meeting she thought the mill increase was a temporary fix to the problem

McLean laughed at that comment.

Hill County Treasurer Sandy Brown shared Armstrong’s concerns and asked what is the county going to be able to do to pay their share if things change significantly in two years.

“I don’t know,” McLean said. “When our deputies want a 5 percent raise and the county doesn’t have the money to give that to them, but their union negotiates that where’s that money going to come from? When the road department says they don’t get high enough in wages and their union negotiates another dollar 50 where’s that money going to come from?”

Brown said costs for services like the ambulance often go up as years go on and the floating mills might not be able to cover it.

“Ain’t that life, it just sucks don’t it,” McLean said.

Wednesday afternoon, Kaercher said he thinks there are better solutions to the issue than raising the mill levy.

“This is my personal opinion,” he said, “but anytime you can look at something that’s going to fund an operation for the long-term, even if it’s a little outside the box, I think you’re moving forward more appropriately than just trying to get by as cheaply as possible.”

McLean said during the meeting she supports the new plan because it’s simple and doesn’t require the creation of a board, which she and Peterson said they think is unnecessary at this point.

“It takes a tremendous amount of work to find people who will serve on boards,” McLean said, “You put people on there and you think they’re a good choice, but they don’t always turn out that way.”

McLean and Peterson said there is always a possibility of looking into the creation of a county-wide district later.

“Nothing is off the table in the long-term,” Peterson said Wednesday afternnon.

Hill County Commissioner Mike Wendland said during the meeting there is an element of time to this decision, which has to be read in time to put on the upcoming ballot in November.

“We gotta have something in place if we’re gonna put it on the ballot for the general election,” he said.

McLean said the city still hasn’t provided the kind of data that Peterson asked for.

Kaercher once again reiterated his reason for not providing specific data.

“You were asking for individual calls, I gave you all the information including last year’s budget revenue and expenses. What you asked for is our individual calls and that is not relevant,” he said. “… To say we’re not giving you the information is false, were just not willing to give you the individual calls, where they’re going and who they’re from.”

Kaercher said this morning that part of the problem is privacy, which is a reason the service keeps data on the when and where of the calls, which can still be a violation of privacy if released, which is why he said the data Peterson is asking for was inappropriate.

“‘Where’ can also be a HIPA violation. So it would take us a considerable amount of time to create the log of calls they are asking for,” he said. “... We have supplied them with a log of the total calls and if they were in the city or county.”

Peterson said Wednesday afternoon that he believed this withholding of data was troubling.

“When growing crops, I look at yield data over a number of years to determine what crop I’m going to seed, what seed is going to give me the best chance of a good crop of good quality,” he said, “That’s the way I grew up, so when I ask for numbers, I’d like to see them.”

He said the totals and percentages provided by the City of Havre are insufficient and he wants to examine how the numbers were arrived at.

“When you give me a total and a percent, you should have some numbers to back it up, and you should be willing to share that number. If you don’t, I wonder why,” he said.

In its letter in February, the city listed the total number of calls the Havre services responded to and how many were in the city and how many were in the county.

He said he didn’t know if the city was fudging the data, but he said he found Kaercher’s reaction to his repeated requests concerning.

“You see the anger that comes out when you ask, the tone of voice, anger is a defense, people get angry so they don’t have to talk about it, they hope it will deflect it away,” he said referring to Kaercher.

“The only reason that I was a little disturbed with that is that the issue never goes away,” Kaercher said this morning when given a chance to respond. “He brings it up so he can say, ‘The city isn’t giving me the information I need to make a decision.’ Commissioner Peterson tends to ask for information that isn’t relevant so he never has to make a decision.”

“We’ve given him all the information for years about the number of calls that come from the county,” he added.

During the meeting Peterson also suggested the city ambulance service further streamline their operations and find ways to cut costs.

“Those of us in agriculture have learned to do that over the years, it’s just good business,” he said.

Solomon said the service has already looked into that possibility and at this point the only way to further cut costs is to cease taking calls outside the city limits.

“You either want that service or you don’t,” he said.

McLean said putting the mill increase on the ballot is a way to gauge whether the public wants the serve or not.

“That’s what this mill does,” she said, “It puts that out there to the county and says, ‘What are you willing to pay for.’”

She said she thinks there may be people who are wiling to give the service up in the county.

“There are people out there who will push back on that and say ‘oh, I’ll just call my neighbor and he’ll drive me to the hospital don’t worry about it,’” she said.

Peterson said Wednesday afternoon the commission has no plans for an inter-local agreement.