Tracie Sullivan

tracie@thespectrum.com

CEDAR CITY – It's been two weeks since area mayors challenged the Iron County Commissioners, calling on them to give the sheriff another year to fix the financial issues currently plaguing the ambulance service.

Yet commissioners have remained quiet.

The mayors met with commissioners nearly a month ago to discuss the issue of privatizing the ambulance service, a proposal put forward by the commission in answer to the department's yearly deficits and increasing $2.1 million debt.

A letter was sent as a follow-up to that meeting, challenging the commissioner's proposal to sell the service to a private company.

While commissioners say they've been "looking at all options," they haven't publicly addressed the issue further.

"We're narrowing in as far as the options, but we still have some things to hammer out," said Commissioner Dave Miller.

As part of this process, commissioners scheduled times this week for each of the three parties who submitted bids to purchase the ambulance service to come in and do a presentation on their proposal.

The first by Classic Air Medical is scheduled Monday at 3 p.m. at the Parowan Courthouse. The other two from Gold Cross and the Preston family from St. George will be held Friday at 2 and 3 p.m.

Miller and Commissioner Dale Brinkerhoff also met with Iorn County Sheriff Mark Gower before Thanksgiving where they quizzed him about his proposal for the ambulance service to save money.

Gower walked away from the meeting optimistic, saying it's the first time he's felt the commissioners were seriously considering other options since announcing their intention to privatize.

"They asked some very specific questions about the proposal we gave them that showed how we could save money. I felt positive when I left the meeting," Gower said. "I'm confident the commissioners will make the right decision not to privatize the ambulance service."

One of Gower's ideas is to change some of the configurations on how they run the paramedics and EMTs.

Initially, Gower planned to implement the new configurations Dec. 1 but was told in the meeting with the commissioners he had to first run those configurations past human resources.

While he said he submitted the numbers to human resources prior to Thanksgiving, he still hasn't received approval.

Meanwhile, Gower said morale in the department is beginning to suffer as staff contends with the unknown and the threat of job security.

Ambulance Operations Sgt. Ty March concurred, echoing Gower's sentiments.

"As the great Donald Rumsfeld once said, 'The only known is the unknown' and that's the hardest part," March said. "Staff is still showing up and serving the community, but they're dealing with stress, fear and burnout while doing it because they don't know whether they're going to have jobs tomorrow."

March said the waiting is the worst part.

"We just want closure on this," he said. "If they're going to sell, then let us know that so we can make some personal decisions."

Still, Gower said he hasn't let it stop him from implementing changes that will save the department money.

Until recently, the county was responsible for transporting patients from Cedar City to the Wasatch Front, but Gower said he has put a stop to that since most of the transports end up costing the department more money than they make.

Part of the reason for the shortfall on these calls is many of the patients needing transports are insured by Medicaid and Medicare.

The federal programs, however, pay only a small percentage of the actual invoice.

Lt. Jody Edwards, director over the ambulance service, is scheduled to be in Salt Lake City this week for a meeting with Utah fire chiefs where they will be hearing from a California speaker who has been successful in getting more Medicaid and Medicare money.

It was the speaker who invited Edwards to the meeting, promising he could show him how to get about $200,000 more a year.

"He called me because he had ran across a news article about what was going on in the ambulance department, and after talking to me awhile and getting the information on what we're collecting he said, 'Jody we can get you an additional $200,000 in your budget,'" Edwards said.

If Edwards is able to find a way to collect more on the accounts, it could make the difference between the service making a profit and continuing to go into debt.

Gower said he has managed to reasonably stay within the proposed budget, but the inability to fully collect on the Medicaid and Medicare invoices has caused yearly deficits running upwards of $300,000.

This year, the county's financial records show Gower stayed within 81 percent of his approved budget as of November, putting the department 2 percent lower than expected.

Regardless, if the revenues don't cover the expenses at the end of the year it will still create a deficit in the department.

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