Floyd County advisory board considering recommending $556,000 annual tax to support EMS services

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

What’s it worth to be sure that an ambulance will come when you call? If the price of a couple of pizzas a year seems fair, you might be inclined to support an essential services levy in Floyd County – if it gets put on the ballot, and if the numbers currently being discussed hold true.

Two county advisory boards spent more than six hours last week hashing over potential amounts of support to propose for emergency medical services (EMS) in the county, the amount of tax and the type of tax to support the various numbers, and the length of time for the initial tax asking to be in effect.

Although an official recommendation has not been decided on or made to the county Board of Supervisors, the various groups have come up with numbers that look like they may recommend the supervisors ask voters to approve collecting about $556,000 annually, for 10 years.

The supervisors could ask voters to approve any length of time for the tax to be in effect up to 15 years, but most of the members of the two advisory boards that have been meeting have settled on 10 years as not too short and not too long.

If the EMS tax were to be collected entirely from property taxes, it would represent about $31 additional each year on a house valued at about $100,000, or about $77 a year on a home valued at $250,000.

It would cost a business with $500,000 in property about $257 extra year, according to preliminary estimates worked out at the meetings last week.

That amount of money could cover the cost of purchasing service from the current ambulance service provider, American Medical Response (AMR). It could also include covering some of the costs for the Nora Springs Ambulance, Marble Rock Fire Rescue first responders, Greene Ambulance calls in Floyd County, and EMS training and public education through the Floyd County EMS Association.

Costs are figured with from 3% to 5% price increases each year, and that $556,000 figure is the average yearly cost spread over 10 years. Costs in the first five years are projected to be less than that amount, so money would be put aside in an EMS account, then it would be used to supplement the payments as costs rise higher than the average in the last five years.

The boards have mostly given up on the idea of forming a new public ambulance service right away, mostly because of the uncertainty of getting the service in place by next summer, when AMR’s current three-year contract expires on June 30.

The $556,000 being considered to be collected through county property taxes or through an income tax surtax, or a combination of the two, is actually a little higher than the projected actual costs for supporting all the county’s EMS services. That extra amount being collected would be available to cover unanticipated events that boost costs – such as another pandemic.

It could also be available to help efforts to start a new public ambulance service, perhaps in three years when AMR’s potential next three-year contract expires.

The first board that has been meeting, the Floyd County Ambulance Commission, is an advisory board to the county and to Charles City to recommend how ambulance services should be provided.

The commission’s members are a representative each of the Charles City Council and Floyd County Board of Supervisors, the Floyd County sheriff, the Charles City police chief and fire chief, two representatives from Floyd County Medical Center and a non-voting representative from the current ambulance service provider, American Medical Response (AMR).

The second board, the Floyd County Emergency Medical Services System Advisory Council, was just formed recently as part of a process to declare EMS as an “essential service,” and its seven members were appointed by the Board of Supervisors. Several people are members of both advisory boards.

Currently, EMS is not an essential service, like fire protection and law enforcement are in Iowa, and there is no law requiring that ambulance services be available. Neither can cities nor counties levy taxes specifically dedicated to EMS services – although often, as is the case in Charles City and Floyd County – general fund tax dollars are already being used to support ambulance service for residents.

Last year the Iowa Legislature amended an existing law that now makes it easier for a county to declare EMS an essential service and ask voters for approval to levy a tax or taxes to support that service.

The Board of Supervisors has already gone through the multi-step process of officially declaring EMS an essential service in Floyd County. Now it must decide if it wants to ask voters to approve taxes to support that service.

Currently Charles City and Floyd County are in the third year of a three-year contract with AMR to provide specific types of services in the city and countywide. The contract cost has gone from $150,000 in the first fiscal year, to $175,000 last fiscal year, to $200,000 in the current fiscal year that began July 1 and will end June 30, 2023.

The city and the county divide that cost evenly, meaning each body is paying $100,000 to AMR this fiscal year to help purchase services. AMR has suggested a price of about $226,000 per year for the following fiscal year under a new contract, with about a 5% cost increase each subsequent year. No formal negotiations for a new contract have begun between AMR and the city and county.

Both the Charles City Council and Floyd County Board of Supervisors have said its becoming increasingly difficult to pay AMR’s annual service fee through currently available taxing sources, and without an EMS tax they may have to look at cutting services elsewhere to keep paying AMR.

The EMS Advisory Council’s purpose  right now is to come up with a recommendation to be given to the Board of Supervisors regarding how much it would cost to support EMS services in the county.

Currently, in addition to AMR, various forms of first responder or ambulance service are being provided by the Nora Springs Ambulance, the Marble Rock Fire/Rescue EMS and the Green Ambulance Service, and various amounts of tax dollars are going to support those services.

Part of both boards’ considerations have been how Floyd County voters might react to the various levels and combinations of taxes, because if the Board of Supervisors decides to put the issue on the ballot in the upcoming Nov. 8 general election, it will take at least a 60% supermajority of “yes” votes to pass.

If the supervisors decide to not put it to a vote, the designation of EMS as an essential service is essentially meaningless. If they ask voters to approve a tax or taxes and the vote fails to garner at least 60% support, then the essential services declaration is void, and any future Board of Supervisors that wants to try to get tax support for EMS must start the process at the beginning.

A decision on whether to ask for tax support for EMS services, how much and for how long, must be made soon, as the law requires at least 60 days notice to the public before the election, which for a Nov. 8 election would be Sept. 9.

County Auditor Gloria Carr, who is also county commissioner of elections, has said a decision must be made by the end of August to give the county enough time to get the question on the ballots.