(Spencer)– Residents in Clay County will decide whether to make Emergency Medical Services an essential service when they head to the polls November 4th. Matt Guyette of Royal serves on the Clay County EMS Advisory Council. He told the Spencer City Council Monday what having the designation would mean…
“What we’d like to do is we could do a tax levy up to 75 cents per thousand. What that will allow us to do is it will allow us to hire an EMS Director, education for the county, equipment, supplies, additional personnel. We don’t quite know what that looks like yet for full personnel. The goal is to have at least one full crew around during daytime hours that will respond to EMS calls in the county and the city, both. And it also explains some vehicle replacements so every four to five years we’ll have to replace an ambulance. Currently that’s being funded by the Board of Supervisors and they’re helping fund the Spencer Hospital ambulance currently.”
Clay County Supervisor Allen Batschelet says the decision to put the matter up to a public vote followed a lot of study and consideration…
“The supervisors looked at this long and hard and realized fire and police are paid for as an essential service, ambulances are not. And we’ve relied on volunteers for decades and generations and they’re drying up. And you heard how much it costs for an EMT to get certified. Those people are paying that out of pocket. The county tries to help them, but then they have to maintain their certifications. We’re asking a lot of our fellow citizens, and there are fewer of them, to provide this essential service to us, the rest of the citizens in Spencer and Clay county.”
Batschelet adds the ballot measure comes on the heels of an independent study that involved Spencer Hospital, Spencer city staff, fire departments and other officials from throughout Clay county.
A bill passed a couple of years ago in the Iowa Legislature allows counties to bring whether or not EMS should be declared an essential service in their respective county to the voters.
