Lengthy BOCC meeting focuses on EMS

SANDPOINT — Tuesday's lengthy Bonner County commissioners' meeting was dominated by a discussion of Bonner County EMS’ ongoing cash crunch.

The BOCC signed a resolution authorizing a tax anticipation note from Umpqua Bank in the amount of $2 million for the purpose of rehabilitating Bonner County EMS.

Bonner County EMS Chief Jeff Lindsey said the loan allows Bonner EMS to “breathe a sigh of relief.” The loan will fund Bonner EMS through January when it receives a new tranche of funds from taxes and then act as a cushion for Bonner EMS through the next year as it seeks long-term solutions to remain financially viable.

The board passed a motion creating some internal controls on Bonner County EMS’ budget during Tuesday’s meeting. Specifically, the county treasurer would send out copies of its monthly account report on Bonner EMS to the chief of Bonner EMS and the board along with the county clerk’s office. Before checks are issued from the EMS budget, available cash will be reviewed to ensure the checks will clear. If the budget of Bonner EMS comes within 50% of the six-month minimum cash balance, the EMS chief will create a plan of action with the county clerk’s office to address the potential cash shortfall.

Commissioner Asia Williams said in her weekly update that the problems with Bonner EMS stem from the way it was created.

She said there was a decision to create an ambulance district, but no concrete plan on how to develop it from there. She described the situation as “clear as mud” and said there are accounts that were opened without BOCC resolutions. Williams said she is still working to understand how the county and Bonner EMS came to be where it is today and what needs to be done to fix the situation.

Lindsey recognized that there was anxiety amongst EMS personnel and said he had sent out an email to staff that no decisions have been made with regard to a change in staffing levels or a change in the shift pattern for Bonner County EMS. He said they do have a plan in place in case the organization is told it needs to cut down on significant amounts of overtime. That plan would be to change from their current two-days-on, four-days-off schedule to a two-days-on, six-days-off schedule.

Lindsey said he does not want to implement the change in schedule and would rather continue at the staffing level they currently have.

He said the organization’s cash reserves would not come back overnight and he would rather take on another TAN next year than make immediate, significant changes to the organization’s structure.

“Me, personally, I would rather do that and keep what we have now and keep our employees whole, than to make a rash decision on having to go to a different shift schedule and potentially hurt their long-range or annual income,” Lindsey said. “Again, those are decisions that will be made in the coming weeks. But nothing has been made official now. We are still in the planning process and digging through all the information.”

Williams said commissioners would be meeting with EMS staff to receive their input.

Dave Bowman, a volunteer firefighter for Northside Fire Department, said he was pleasantly surprised that Bonner EMS had decided not to implement the proposed schedule change because moving to a two-days-on, six-days-off schedule results in a decrease in EMS personnel on duty at any given point, which translates to a reduction in service for the community.

Bowman also claimed that in a previous meeting, EMS leadership had said that EMS staff were on board with a reduction in overtime which was not the case.

“Because I have this relationship through the fire department, EMS personnel have reached out to me and asked me to speak at this meeting because they know I often do,” Bowman said. “And to say that they are not in fact on board with it. There may be some who are, but there are a lot of them who are not, and they are reluctant to come out publicly and speak for fear of repercussions.”

Bowman said that EMS staff suggested an anonymous survey could be used to gather their thoughts and ideas anonymously.

The BOCC also conducted some routine housekeeping during Tuesday’s meeting.

The BOCC approved a claims batch totaling roughly $1.15 million. The batch included $130,000 for software renewal and $700,000 for solid waste operations, disposal of waste, rural waste collection and labor contracts.

There was also significant discussion surrounding a proposal from Williams to drop the credit card limit on county credit cards to $1. County employees would then need to contact the county clerk’s office to raise that limit if they needed to purchase something with a county credit card.

The proposal was designed to provide better internal control over access to county funds via credit card use and eliminate extraneous purchases by county employees.

In discussion, it was determined that there would be exceptions to this proposal for certain departments that needed to have access to county credit cards for emergency purchases.

The motion failed to pass, with commissioners Korn and Bradshaw voting against it.

The board did pass a motion to change the way health savings account payments are made to employees.

Under the current model, HSA benefits are paid out to employees as a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year and upon hiring. Under the new model, the benefits will be paid out in installments and new hires would be paid a pro-rated amount of their HSA benefits, depending on how much time was left in the fiscal year when they were hired.

Korn said he wished this change had been in place years ago because it would have saved the county and taxpayers thousands of dollars.

The county’s human resources department said the county would have saved approximately $26,000 from the beginning of the last fiscal year to now had the new model been in place.