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Local Fire Agencies Face Reduction In County EMS Funding

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By Mark  Schantz | The Suncoast News

Published: February 28, 2009

TARPON SPRINGS - The burning question around North Pinellas fire stations these days is how will the county's plan to renegotiate emergency medical service funding to local agencies impact their ability to serve their communities.

Last week a unanimous County Commission voted to revisit the county's first-responder contract with 19 cities and fire districts, which helps the cities and districts pay for firefighter-paramedics.

For example, each fiscal year Tarpon Springs receives about $1 million for its Fire Department and the Palm Harbor Special Fire Control District, which operates Palm Harbor Fire Rescue, gets $1.5 million. The money from the first-responder pact helps offset the cost of providing EMS service.

Unlike neighboring counties Hillsborough and Pasco, Pinellas County does not have a fire rescue department. In Pinellas, municipal fire departments such as those in Tarpon Springs, Dunedin, Oldsmar and Safety Harbor and fire districts such as Palm Harbor and the East Lake Tarpon Special Fire Control District, which operates East Lake Fire and Rescue, handle firefighting duties.

James Dates, assistant county administrator in charge of emergency medical services, said just like other governmental agencies, Pinellas EMS is feeling the effect of statewide tax-reduction initiatives and recession-related reductions in property tax revenue.

Taking in less revenue means every county agency has to find ways to cut expenditures to balance its budget, Dates said. So county leaders asked each department to reduce spending by 30 percent to offset the revenue decline.

This year county EMS had to use $14.5 million in reserves to offset its funding shortfall. The plan now is to renegotiate contracts with the fire departments to reduce costs and see if EMS service can be provided more efficiently, Dates said.

The details of the possible funding changes have yet to be worked out, he noted.

For example, however, both local firefighters and Sunstar paramedics now respond to calls for emergency medical service. Sunstar Emergency Services is the county-funded sole provider of ambulance service in Pinellas. Sunstar ambulances are dispatched to emergency medical calls so firefighters do not have to transport patients, taking them away from other duties.

It might, however, be more cost effective to prioritize EMS calls, Dates said. Under such a revised system, perhaps only Sunstar units would respond to some calls and firefighter-paramedics from the fire agencies would handle others, he said.

If such a change reduces the number of EMS calls the fire departments are handling, their county funding could be reduced by a proportionate amount, Dates speculated.

In another scenario, county EMS may fund one firefighter-paramedic on a fire department engine per shift, rather than the present two, he said.

Tarpon Springs Fire Chief Stephen Moreno said any cut in county funding would greatly impact his department, which is already understaffed. The county EMS funding pays for eight firefighter-paramedic positions at the Fire Department, he noted.

"We are already operating at bare minimum staffing," he added.

Every local fire agency is waiting to see what changes in the EMS contract the county proposes when the pact expires in September, Moreno said. The county's 2010 fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

The county, Moreno speculated, could have ulterior motives in reducing the EMS funding to city fire departments and fire districts: forcing them toward a consolidated county EMS service.

When it was tried in Miami-Dade County, Moreno said, countywide EMS proved more expensive than anticipated and did not produce good response times.

Moreno suggested Pinellas County EMS is operating at a deficit not because of the funding help it provides to fire departments and districts but because it is top heavy with administrative personnel.

In response, Dates said county EMS is looking at making spending cuts across the board and not just reducing local agency funding.

The contractor renegotiation with fire department and districts the County Commission ordered is not an attempt to force EMS consolidation, Dates said. Its sole aim is reducing county EMS costs, he said.

Palm Harbor Fire Chief James Angle said the fire district budget likely would be negatively impacted by a reduction in county EMS funding, depending on how much of a cut is made. Unlike cities, which have other sources of funds, the fire district must solely rely on property tax revenue, he noted.

In Palm Harbor Sunstar paramedics already respond on their own to some medical calls in places such as nursing homes and adult congregate living facilities, Angle said.

Palm Harbor Fire Rescue is adequately staffed to protect the public and wants to remain that way, Angle said.

The budget of Palm Harbor Fire Rescue is roughly twice as large as that of the Tarpon Springs Fire Department.

The county is not planning to hold town meetings solely on the EMS funding issue, Dates said, but the issue will be addressed during the County Commission work sessions on the county's fiscal 2010 budget.

Mark Schantz can be reached at 727-815-1075 or mschantz@suncoastnews.com.

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