EMS move to fire department gets official OK

BY PRU SOWERS
Konk Life Staff Writer

Key West city commissioners have made it official, voting unanimously this week to move ahead with plans to put emergency ambulance and medical services under fire department management.

Commissioners had voiced enthusiastic approval for the move at their June 3 meeting but could not vote because a formal resolution had not been put on the agenda. City staff was directed at that time to write up a proposal for the June 17 meeting, resulting in a unanimous vote to authorize staff to take actions towards providing emergency medical services (EMS) in-house, instead of continuing to contract it out to a private ambulance service.

The resolution gives City Manager Bob Vitas the authority to develop plans and budget allocations to put appropriate staffing, equipment acquisition, operating procedures and related components of ambulance service under the direct supervision of the Key West Fire Department. The fire department was also directed to create a new position, Division Chief of EMS.

Vitas was also directed to negotiate a 12-month extension to the current EMS contract with CARE/American to provide ambulance service. That contract, costing the city $50,000 a month, expires March 31, 2015. The extension will give the fire department time to put the new program into place.

“This is just to get the planning stages going,” Commissioner Billy Wardlow, a former fire chief himself, said about the resolution.

That program will result in significant changes in the fire department. Initial costs are estimated at $2.3 million for the first year, according to a study done by the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF). Both the IAFF and the Florida Fire Chiefs Association enthusiastically endorsed the fire department taking over emergency services. Daniel Harshberger, Jr., from the state fire chiefs association, presented his organization’s report to commissioners earlier this month, estimating the city would have a balancing act between revenues brought in from charging for ambulance calls and the cost of providing those services. He said the city would have a deficit each year, topping $277,000 in year five.

“Up until a few years ago you were paying upwards of between $400,000 and $600,000 [annually]. So you’re operating in the negative but at less than what you were paying out previously to the private provider,” Harshberger told commissioners.

Walter Dix, an IAFF representative, said that based on a study of Key West’s needs, his group recommended that four ambulances be purchased and 16 fill-time fire fighter paramedics be hired, as well as a physician medical director. His revenue projections for the city ranged from $939,000 to almost $1.7 million a year, depending on the number of calls and how much the city charged for them. The current cost of an ambulance call in the city is approximately $328.

Even though there is no way to determine whether bringing EMS into the fire department will result in a deficit that taxpayers will have to pay, the benefits of the move outweigh any uncertainty, said Key West Fire Chief David Fraga.

“Private providers will come and go. They will migrate to follow the bottom line. As history has shown us, when their profits don’t meet their quarterly forecasts, they will leave. The Key West Fire Department is not leaving,” he said.

Fire officials estimated it will take approximately 15 months to get the program up and running.

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]