CC Minutes - 12/07/09 Joint Elected Officials

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Councilor Ralston pointed out that a person could sign up for Fire Med insurance when being picked up by an ambulance for transport. Councilor Clark looked forward to the opportunity to help support more Fire Med memberships. He supported the sixth recommendation. He believed that they could fundamentally change how the response system worked. He was not ready to “state flat out” that he was in support of creating a special district. He said this was why the wording in the first recommendation indicated that they were in agreement that ambulances provided a core service, that no one wanted to cut the service, and that they were willing to provide some support from the general fund. He underscored that this was why they wanted to indicate the willingness to study the idea of a district and to be educated about what could be possible. Eugene Councilor Betty Taylor opined that if ambulance transport was a core service, there should be national health care. She averred that because it was a core service, the funding should come from the general fund. She said they needed new sources of revenue and they needed to be more creative in looking for them. She expressed concern that a special district would be more removed from the people and would be “too much to keep track of” for citizens. Eugene Councilor Zelenka ascertained from Chief Groves that the fire department had received no general fund contributions and had been solely supported by fees for service through an enterprise fund since 1981. He said the projected deficit could change; the numbers were analyzed from month to month and lately ambulance usage had been down. He stated that the ambulance service had been stable and it had not been impacted until the federal Balanced Budget Act had been enacted in 1998. He said it had been further exacerbated in 2003 by the Medicaid Modernization Act. Reserve funds had been exhausted. He stressed that they had adjusted their model a number of times in an effort to reduce and/or avoid costs. He noted that they had brought in a private provider for non-emergency transport. He added that they had not put any money into the Ambulance Replacement Fund for the current year because of cost-cutting efforts. Councilor Zelenka considered the recommendations to be “pretty generic.” He said Eugene was facing a $7.5 million deficit and it was going to be challenging to balance the budget. He favored exploring more sustainable public funding options but he was not in favor of forming a special district. He supported an increase in marketing for the Fire Med subscriptions. Regarding the fifth recommendation, he shared Councilor Ortiz’ concerns about the potential cost impact a change in the ASA would have. He also agreed that the seventh recommendation should include the United Front. Mayor Piercy understood that Councilor Ortiz had suggested moving forward on the fourth and sixth recommendations. She noted that the JEO had been working on the economic summit and on creating more jobs, which would add revenue to the general fund. She thought they should take the rest of the recommen- dations back to their individual jurisdictions for further consideration. Mayor Leiken thanked the task force for their work and, in particular, Councilor Ortiz for her leadership on this issue. He noted that Springfield Fire Med had launched an ad campaign that underscored the cost difference between an ambulance ride and a Fire Med subscription and asked if it had generated results. Springfield Fire Chief Murphy responded that they had seen a five-percent increase in subscriptions since the last ad campaign. He said they were now working on a fundraising campaign meant to close the gap between the current economic conditions and the future economic conditions. He related that the greatest market penetration observed nationwide was 48 percent. He advised them not to bet on doubling the membership. He stressed that they were enthusiastically pursuing an increase in membership and they intended to keep doing so. MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials—Lane County, Springfield, December 7, 2009 Page 5 & Eugene