Pauls Valley is poised to cut ties with Mercy EMS and begin the search for another ambulance service provider. During a meeting of the Pauls Valley Ambulance Service District Tuesday, Pauls Valley City Manager Lee Litterell told city council members he and Mayor Jocelyn Rushing had met with Mercy officials last week at Mercy’s request, after Mercy EMS notified the city it intends to terminate its ambulance service effective Sept. 20.
“They’re really not willing to come off their pricing any,” Litterell told the council. “I think we need to go ahead and accept that termination letter and move forward with going out for another bid.”
Mercy has been providing the city’s ambulance service since 2018. In February, the city council approved a new bid for ambulance service from Mercy of more than $700,000 per year, essentially doubling what the city had been paying for ambulance service.
Pauls Valley Fire Chief Mark Norman addressed council members during Tuesday’s meeting to share possible funding sources for ambulance service moving forward. Norman has been researching options for several months, as city leaders have struggled with how to pay for the rising cost of ambulance service.
Pauls Valley has been using a combination of ad valorem taxes collected as part of its “522” EMS district and county sales tax money designated for public ambulance service to pay for its EMS contract.
Norman said the 522 district is collecting about $104,000 in ad valorem taxes annually and the county sales tax is expected to bring in about $165,000 for the city this year. Combined, the two sources still fall well short of what is needed to continue ambulance service, based on the lowest bid the city received in February, which was around $500,000.
Norman said in talking to EMS directors and city managers around the state, he found most ambulance services are funded with ad valorem taxes through a 522 district, an EMS sales tax, a utility subsidy or subscriptions.
In Pauls Valley’s situation, Norman said, one way to generate additional revenue to help pay for EMS, especially in the short term, would be to add a subsidy fee on water bills to be designated for ambulance service.
“I’ve worked on this, it seems like, forever. This is the only way I can see that we can even attempt on Sept. 21 to have an ambulance in Pauls Valley,” Norman said. A $5 to $6 utility subsidy on around 4,000 meters could raise an additional $200,000 to $300,000 annually for ambulance service.
Combined with existing funding, Norman said, that amount could potentially sustain the ambulance service for a couple of years, as the city works on additional solutions such as expanding its 522 district to collect ad valorem taxes from an area that more closely represents the territory covered by its ambulance service.
When Pauls Valley’s 522 district was established in the 1980s, Norman said, it was set up to collect ad valorem taxes only within Pauls Valley’s city limits. The area currently covered by Pauls Valley’s ambulance service is much larger, stretching north to the Garvin County line, south to East County Road 1610 (Liberty Road), west of Whitebead almost to Maysville, and east to North County Road 3300.
According to Mercy EMS figures, about half of the calls Pauls Valley’s ambulance service responds to are outside of Pauls Valley’s city limits.
Norman said of the 65 522 EMS districts in the state, only two – Pauls Valley and Noble – are confined to just municipal boundaries. More commonly, 522 districts are set up as countywide district or along the boundaries of a school district, which is how Wynnewood’s ambulance is currently funded.
Voter approval is required to establish a new 522 EMS district. Norman said he has talked to some of the other EMS agencies in the county and would like to meet with county officials next to explore whether a county 522 district could be put the ballot in Garvin County. He estimates Pauls Valley’s portion of revenue generated by a county 522 district, would be around $220,000 annually.
Council members did not take any official action during Tuesday’s Ambulance District meeting but did direct Litterell to pursue a more detailed final proposal regarding a utility subsidy and bring it back to the council in a future meeting.
Pauls Valley’s next regular meeting is July 25.