Council EMS Cuts Expenses, Will Seek Levy Approval Again
On Monday, June 8, EMS Director for Council Valley Ambulance, Cody Murphy, stood before the Adams County Commissioners with some grim news. Earlier this year, Council Valley Ambulance had run a permanent override levy to increase the ambulance budget, however, the levy failed, and now the ambulance was faced with some hard choices.
Murphy had not come to the decision to run a levy lightly. While reviewing the budget earlier this year, he decided in order to continue serving the area with high quality emergency services, there really was no way forward without a levy. “When seconds count in EMS and we’re minutes away, that only has negative outcomes for everyone involved,” said Murphy. They decided to ask for enough to not only meet the current deficits, but also to improve the services. Murphy’s goal was to bring ALS (advanced life support) services to Council as well as basic EMT level care.
As a permanent override levy, the ambulance levy required a 2/3 majority vote to pass. It was a close race, the final vote was 61.89% in favor, just shy of the requirement for a 2/3 majority. In all, it came down to just 42 votes. “21 nays to turn to yeas and we would have had it,” said Murphy. When broken down by precinct, the deficit was in the North Council district.
However, the levy did fail. As a result, everyone working for the Council Valley Ambulance would be taking a pay cut. The idea first came from several of the EMT’s. “They actually proposed this same reduction when I first took over,” said Murphy. They knew something had to change. Murphy, however, wanted to wait and see how things went with the levy before making the call. Since it failed to pass, they went ahead with the cuts. The ambulance district eliminated night and weekend on call pay for EMT’s, as well as eliminated paid call during the remaining paid shifts, which are only for six hours a day during weekdays.
Murphy also reduced his own annual salary by over 65%. “I’m not going to ask them for skin in the game without me putting it out there as well,” he said, “it’s only fair that we all, across the board, make those cuts.”
The ambulance, which was already down to only around a dozen EMT’s and drivers, has already lost one employee to the cuts in the two weeks since they started implementing the new pay structure. “Payroll, that is our biggest downfall,” said Murphy.
The ambulance is planning to run the levy again on the November ballot. Murphy said this time he plans to host multiple town halls across the different regions and try to garner more community support and involvement. “I hope the community will become more involved with their own health care,” he said, “instead of maybe taking it for granted that it’s there, maybe actually realize that it has to be a community involvement for it to sustain.” Everyone at Council Valley Ambulance is hopeful that November will have a different outcome.
In the meantime, the EMS personnel at Council Valley Ambulance will be continuing to service the community with the reduced pay schedule. Additionally, they are planning on trying to bolster numbers, and train up the next generation of EMTs with a community EMT Basic course that will start the third week in July. It will be a 12-15 week hybrid online and in person class, with most of the lectures and lessons online but with Fridays in person for hands-on skills and test prep. EMT Aubrianna Pate recently became certified as an instructor and will be teaching the class.
“I hope and pray that we can actually have more community interaction,” said Murphy. He hopes to improve the services at Council Valley Ambulance and to be able to offer advanced life support services in the future. However, as it stands right now, long term, if nothing changes he thought they may have to look at a more volunteer structure. However he doesn’t think it will come to that, and is hopeful for the future. “I think we were close,” said Murphy, “I think we just need more community members to care and to push this forward.”
