E.C. Council discusses ambulance system that is 'ripe for failure'

Electric City’s council last week raised questions and concerns about the funding and staffing of the only ambulance service for the area.

The service is run by the city of Grand Coulee’s volunteer fire department, which depends on voluntary staffers responding to calls.

The city council’s attention was drawn to the question a month earlier when Grand Coulee City Councilmember Tom Poplawski visited to ask Electric City to consider contributing toward the costs of calls that Grand Coulee can’t bill for because it doesn’t result in a patient transport.

Following up on questions raised at that meeting, Mayor Diane Kohout said the city had contacted Rick Paris, chief of Grand Coulee’s ambulance service, who said the cost of such calls is about $150-$250. He said the service collects enough money to stay in the black each year.

Paris suggested that if the council were to contribute funds to the ambulance service, it might look into only contributing through an interlocal agreement into a “proprietary” fund, one that can’t be tapped to fund other city expenses.

Public Works Director Travis Irwin cautioned that such an arrangement could not ensure that Grand Coulee would not decide to simply use Electric City’s contributions to offset further erosion of its own flow from fees collected.

Grand Coulee raised its ambulance rates last year, and a strong disagreement ensued when the extra funds were not budgeted to flow into the ambulance service, but instead to the city’s general fund.

Councilmember Don Redfield suggested the service might be administered better by the hospital district.

“If it’s a program standing by itself, then it doesn’t have any other piggies in the trough,” Redfield said.

Councilmember Brian Buche said he would have no problem with the city contributing to the service via a fund that can’t be tapped for other purposes. He noted, however, that Electric City residents pay more for a call than Grand Coulee residents do, despite Grand Coulee making significant money by charging for water it simply passes through to the Bureau of Reclamation from Grand Coulee’s intertie with Electric City’s water system.

“They make $150,000 a year selling water to the bureau off our water contract that we make no money off of, and they’re not offering to put any back to help us out,” he said.

Councilmember Robin Boyce predicted the area would, within five to ten years, contract out to professional service for ambulance service. He said the average age of volunteers working on the ambulance is 65 “and that is not a sustainable system.”

It is one that is “ripe for failure,” Redfield added.

Council members did recall that Grand Coulee’s Deputy Fire Chief Nic Alexander did approach the council in the past regarding the need to set up a regional ambulance service.

Grand Coulee’s city council had a similar discussion last July, ending with the need for a community survey, after which a community-wide meeting would be held.

That hasn’t happened yet.