PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The Wood County Commission is looking for a way to create a permanent funding source for emergency ambulance services.
For years, the county was served by two different services. St. Josephs Ambulance, a private company and Camden Clark/WVU Medicine. About a year ago, St. Josephs went out of business and Camden Clark agreed to pick up their half of the county. However, Commissioner Blair Couch said the cost has been steep.
“They stepped up and came to us saying they needed to buy more ambulances. We provided over $900,000 and they purchased ambulances. Now they’ve come back and said they’re providing this service at a loss and we three commissioners see the need to do something. We can’t have a break in coverage,” said Couch.
However, what to do is still up in the air. Couch and other county leaders have spoken to a number of other counties about what is the best direction.
“We want to find a good solution, we have to have an ongoing funding source,” he explained.
It’s still unclear what that will be, but the commission has narrowed it down to three choices. There’s an ambulance fee, which can be implemented with the vote of the three commissioners. There’s an ambulance or public safety levy and there’s a new option approved by the Legislature which would allow for a very narrowly designed sales tax with specific directions on how the revenue could be spent. The last two options require voter approval.
But Couch said to get it on the November ballot they need to work quickly. But there are a lot of questions about all three options which they need to answer first. The commission hoped to meet with legal counsel in the coming days to decide if they go with a levy how best to write it and what flexibility they might have with the tax option.
“We’ll put something to the voters, either a levy or a tax, and know we can pub an ambulance fee on if both fail,” Couch said.
A number of West Virginia counties fund their own ambulance services with in-house EMTs, a director, and a billing department. Couch said that might be a long term solution, but it takes a long time to put that together and they need something done quickly. Couch said the commission and the sheriff understand the strain this has created for Camden Clark and their service. Couch used the recent fire at the Peoples Cartage warehouse as a classic example.
“I’m standing at the fire site and we have all these volunteers, In the middle of all is Camden Clark Ambulance with a rehab tent for the firemen and an ambulance on site in case something happens. There’s no billing for that, ” said Couch.
Camden Clark has requested around $1.4 million in funding to continue the operation.
“Nobody needs to call 911 to be told we can’t get you an ambulance for a couple of hours. To say I’ve lost sleep over this would be a true statement,” Couch explained. “Ambulance service goes to the core of what a government does. If we can have a robust ambulance service through Camden Clark, all the better.”