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Time zone, but I didn't catch the meeting time was with on my phone. It comes up is Eastern Standard Time what we're trying to 00:00:00
accomplish. 00:00:06
Got it. 00:00:13
Doctor Harris, Yeah. 00:00:18
He's just on a call. He's on. Yeah. He doesn't have it pulled up. 00:00:24
I feel like we're back in code. 00:00:29
Yeah. 00:00:35
Busy. 00:00:37
That's a good thing. 00:00:38
Our business is slowing. Is it? 00:00:40
It's starting to. 00:00:44
In the last three weeks. 00:00:48
In real steady, which is surprising, but rates are dropping a little bit. So are they? 00:00:50
I had AI had a slow. 00:00:56
You know, Memorial Day around then, but now it's. 00:01:00
It's back. I got 2 closest Friday. 00:01:04
I know it's not going on vacation is the next week and it's gonna get nuts so. 00:01:07
I hope to close on one on Friday too. There you go. 00:01:14
Where you close that? What time? 00:01:19
I haven't said it yet. 00:01:23
The Juneteenth is got everybody messed up. Every messed up, yeah. 00:01:28
The banks closed, but the mortgage companies. 00:01:34
I will get started here in about two minutes. 00:01:39
Yes. So what you want to do is just reach up and push it on. You'll see a green light. 00:01:45
Yeah, Oh. 00:01:54
I got 2 mikes. That's because you have. 00:01:58
Just make sure I. 00:02:02
Get your mic front. 00:02:03
Is a very short meeting Tuesday. 00:02:11
Oh, you. 00:02:14
Oh yeah, that's. 00:02:17
Is it tomorrow? 00:02:20
Oh, no, you're talking about the joint meeting on Tuesday? Tuesday. OK, gotcha. 00:02:23
Tomorrow is. 00:02:27
Are the good news and the music all right? 00:02:42
OK, it's 3:30. I'm going to call this meeting of the Floyd County EMS Task Force to order. The time is 3:30. If we just would 00:02:49
rise. 00:02:53
Say the pledge, please. 00:02:58
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 00:03:00
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:03:05
All right. 00:03:15
Thank you for everyone for being here today. 00:03:18
We don't really have a formal agenda for today's meeting. 00:03:21
The purpose of today's meeting really is more of an introductory meeting and more geared towards talking about what we're trying 00:03:26
to accomplish. What's this task force so I. 00:03:32
As you all know, recently we have. 00:03:39
Quite a bit of changes. We've changed our primary ambulance provider here in Floyd County. And as we have done that we have a two 00:03:43
year contract in place and it gives us a little bit of time to determine what exactly the future of EMS looks like here in Floyd 00:03:51
County. And here we have what what what the commissioners believe is to be the majority stakeholders on helping determine what 00:03:58
that looks like because there are several different models. 00:04:06
For us to kind of choose from as we move forward. 00:04:13
If we would just kind of maybe start at the end and kind of just let's introduce ourselves to the rest of the board. Michael 00:04:19
Moody. I'm the chairman of the Georgetown Township Fire Protection District board. 00:04:24
Been involved with the fire service a little over 2020, almost 25 years now. 00:04:31
Tim Franklin, Fire Chief, New Albany Township Fire. I've been in the fire service now 31 years. 00:04:36
Darryl Mills, board chair at New Albany Township. 00:04:43
About 10 years with the far our board services. 00:04:46
Matt Smith, chairman of Highlander, and I have been with Greenville Highlander, I think for five years now. 00:04:52
Charlie, you want to introduce yourself? 00:04:59
Yeah, Charlie Moon, Franklin Township trustee, past firefighter and EMT. 00:05:02
OK, Doctor Harris. 00:05:08
Hi, yeah, Tom Harris. I am the Floyd County Health Officer with the Floyd County Health Department. Also, I'm a board certified 00:05:12
emergency medicine physician practiced in the community for close to 30 years now. 00:05:19
Thank you, Doctor Harrison Danny Short, President of Floyd County Council. 00:05:27
And I'm Jason Sharp. I'm going to be the commissioners designee for this task force. I also have 30 years experience in emergency 00:05:32
services. I spent six years doing both ground and air transport and emergency medical services and also have 24 years as a member 00:05:39
of the Jeffersonville Fire Department, where I currently serve as the Deputy Chief of Administration. 00:05:47
So I think we've assembled a pretty good team to look at what the future of EMS may look like here in Floyd County I. 00:05:54
The goal is really simple there. Like I said, there are several different models for us to kind of look at. 00:06:04
There everything from hybrid models to you know private models to fire based models to standalone county models and you know there 00:06:11
there is no one cookie cutter way to look at these different models because even when we talk about. 00:06:19
And nothing is off the table here. I just would like just some good open, honest dialogue about what we each feel that looks like. 00:07:02
You know, I think that Highlander has already kind of put into place their own ambulance service right now. I don't know if that's 00:07:09
going to be a long term thing or or not, but you know, I think this is a good opportunity for us as a county to really kind of 00:07:16
figure out. 00:07:22
How we solve this problem long term here in this county for our citizens? 00:07:30
So I'm open to entertain any ideas here off the floor. 00:07:35
If I could offer just a couple thoughts. I've been doing a little bit of research and I asked Keith to do some research. Who is 00:07:42
the Georgetown Township Fire Protection Board Council? 00:07:46
I'll speak just personally for a moment. It seems to me like the state legislature is evolving and how they expect emergency 00:07:53
services in the state of Indiana to be responsive to the communities needs. 00:07:59
There is. I am not an attorney. I am not pretending to be an attorney. I expect to be. Keith usually sits here next to me and 00:08:07
after I talk, he then corrects everything I said that's wrong, so I apologize up front. 00:08:14
Back in 1993, the state created a statute, IC16-31-5. 00:08:21
And it's the provision for authorization of emergency medical services by local governments. 00:08:28
And what it did is it allowed local governments, city, town, Township, county to tax the citizens to provide emergency services. I 00:08:33
believe that this has been amended several times just looking at the statute 2016 and 2022. But that created a situation where you 00:08:42
were taxing the citizens and the money was going into the regular general revenue stream and. 00:08:50
I'll say this as politely and politically as I can. We've seen how sometimes EMS emergency services can get politicized, good, bad 00:08:59
or indifferent. And I think that the legislature has seen that also, and they've now started to shift focus a little bit. So last 00:09:06
year they enacted a new code. It's six Dash 3.6. 00:09:13
I'll start again. So if somebody I didn't realize you guys wanted six dash 3.6. 00:09:22
Dash 6. Dash 2.8. 00:09:28
And it establishes the ability for local governments to use a local income tax. 00:09:33
For emergency medical services. 00:09:38
And I'm not an attorney, I'm not going to interpret what it says, but reading it, it is very clear that you can tax the citizens, 00:09:41
but this money has to go to nothing other than EMS. 00:09:47
Correct. So you don't have to go through the. 00:09:53
Football fight of well, we need a little bit over here. We need to do this. This is more important today because they're 00:09:55
recognizing the importance of a stable established EMS service for your community. So I think that as we start talking about what 00:10:01
that future looks like, as you said, Jason, which I think is exactly what we need to do, it has to be in a dual track with how 00:10:06
you're going to fund it. 00:10:11
If we do not establish from the beginning in the stable as a political as possible, if I can say that funding source, we're never 00:10:17
going to be really successful in providing the EMS service that our citizens really deserve. 00:10:24
And then we figure out how we do it. 00:11:06
I agree, Michael. And I think that that segues into. Yeah, I'll expand on that a little bit since I'm kind of the. 00:11:09
Financial. 00:11:15
Piece not not an expert at all so I won't say expertise, but I. 00:11:18
So our financial advisor, Baker Tilly's. 00:11:23
Owes me a report. 00:11:26
Hopefully this week on. 00:11:28
Different funding mechanisms and the one that you said is is included. 00:11:31
A there's a couple other pieces to it. So there's one like you mentioned that is basically an EMS lit, it's an income tax. The 00:11:38
other one is a public safety. 00:11:44
That one is a little different because. 00:11:51
It can be used for different things and more people or more taxing units get their hands in it. 00:11:55
So that would in theory be a harder hit to the taxpayer because we would need it. 00:12:02
More revenue to get to where we need to be because the city would take a little bit I think maybe. 00:12:10
Community corrections or there's a couple other agencies that would be able to pull from that. 00:12:16
And the third piece is. 00:12:22
The any legislature as you brought up has also passed and it might be in coordinates with in accordance with this code that you 00:12:25
just gave that allows fire districts. 00:12:32
Taxing units. 00:12:41
Raise their levy to pay for emergency services out of their levy. 00:12:45
So I'll have a report and hopefully it's not overly complicated and it's compare and contrast. 00:12:51
Those options among others, and I'll be happy to share that with you all once I get it. 00:13:01
Because we're asking the same thing on council. 00:13:08
Whichever way this eventually ends up going, umm. 00:13:13
We you know we need some type of. 00:13:19
Funding source and I believe for the next two years, 25 and 26 that this is my thoughts. Not that I'm necessarily in support of 00:13:23
this, but I think there is enough support on council for the EMS lit. 00:13:30
But with a sunset A2 year time frame and then what's next? Then that can either be extended or that can be. 00:13:38
Done away with and we moved to a different model, but that will help us from. 00:13:48
You know, scratching and clawing each year to find out how we're going to pay for this, you know, so for the next two years, we 00:13:56
give ourselves a little breathing room. 00:14:00
Everything's funded and we can do our work of. 00:14:04
How are we moving forward? What's what's working? What's? 00:14:08
I'm a big fan of best practices in other communities. 00:14:13
What are you doing? How long you been doing it? Do you like it? Do you not? 00:14:17
So sometimes I just look up. 00:14:23
Council people from. 00:14:25
County up north and just call them and like, hey, you don't know me, but we're thinking about doing what you're doing. What do you 00:14:27
like about it? What don't you like and. 00:14:30
That, you know, I've garnered a lot of information from that type of, you know, reaching out so. 00:14:35
I've said before I'm not for or against any model I want what's. 00:14:45
Best. Most responsive. 00:14:51
And third, most cost effective, but. 00:14:54
With with a funding source, do you have any numbers? 00:15:00
Approximate numbers What that if you go with that Lib tax, what for? 00:15:03
How much? Yeah, I'm guessing the lit tax is going to be in the $40 per. 00:15:08
Taxpayer, again, not being an attorney. The statute says that you can implement it in tenths. I'm sorry, hundredths of a percent 00:15:17
with a maximum of .2%. So if I'm reading that correctly, that's gives you at least an idea. And also sunsets in 25 years. 00:15:26
The. 00:15:36
The judicial lit at a point. 00:15:38
04. 00:15:41
I believe brought in about 1.4 million. 00:15:44
So. 00:15:48
You know, it gets a little tricky when we start doing population versus. 00:15:50
Earners. 00:15:56
The bad, I don't say bad, but the I guess the negative for the people who live in the city is they also live in the county, so 00:15:59
they would be paying that as well. So they're already getting EMS service from the city. 00:16:07
Well that can be something that maybe is a bridge to a county wide EMS that includes the city. 00:16:17
And I just not saying that's where we go or not, but if we're duplicating services or taxing on some of the citizens, I think we 00:16:23
should talk about that when it's appropriate. Maybe not today, but that could be a discussion down the road. 00:16:29
Doctor Harris, I'd love to hear what your thoughts I. 00:16:37
Are about the future of EMS and Floyd County going forward as somebody who works in the emergency department, someone who is on 00:16:41
the receiving end of these patients coming in. 00:16:46
What are some of the things that you have seen kind of on your end that you would like to see from whatever the service is moving 00:16:53
forward? 00:16:56
Thanks. Yeah, I actually. 00:17:03
That's sort of how I've sort of been approaching distance from sort of the end Oregon end user perspective. 00:17:06
What we need to see happen is an improvement to what's really a state-of-the-art EMF system. 00:17:15
We don't have it currently. 00:17:23
We under New Chapel we saw far too many runs that showed up as basic run. 00:17:26
Rather than ALS run. 00:17:34
So what I'd like to see is appropriate EMS staffing. 00:17:37
With paramedic level runs being done by paramedic, basic runs being done by basic EMT's. 00:17:43
And I think the actual mechanics of that is something that obviously we've got to workout. 00:17:50
But that's secondary. I think the goal should be the provision of state-of-the-art. 00:17:57
Emergency medical services in. 00:18:04
But like everything else, the devils in the detail. 00:18:07
Whether it's an independent EMS service. 00:18:11
Or whether it's fire based is I think a future thing that needs to be determined and indeed is probably largely dependent on 00:18:14
funding. 00:18:19
I agree, doc. And you know, when I sit here and I think about. 00:18:25
What the future of EMS looks like. I agree. I, I think this is a real opportunity to Floyd County to be the gold standard for pre 00:18:29
hospital emergency care, not only in our region, but in the state. I think we're in a great position to see that possibly happen 00:18:35
and. 00:18:41
I think that looks a lot of different ways. I I foresee a system that does have some sort of revenue stream of some some sort 00:18:47
whether it be most likely an EMS lit or through a fire district tax, you know, I think a lot about. 00:18:57
Recognizing where we are as far as how many paramedics that we actually have in Indiana and being able to smartly deploy those 00:19:07
assets, I think of different ways to decrease the load on the 911 system by interjecting programs like community paramedicine or 00:19:15
mobile integrated health that can get out there and. 00:19:23
I'd like to see built into this component no matter whether it be standalone, private or fire based. 00:20:03
I agree. I think one of the issues that we need to be careful of though is what the military refers to is mission creep. 00:20:12
You know, the, there's, you know, other interventions like the health department, we've recently hired a social worker and we 00:20:22
found that she's been really effective in some of the stuff that you're talking about, you with the frequent Flyers and access to 00:20:28
care and things like that. You know, the other issue that comes up, and I'll throw it out there just because it's been bought up 00:20:34
before, is what, you know, is referred to as a Chuck run or a, a, you know, like a transfer from the nursing home to the hospital 00:20:40
or vice versa. 00:20:46
You know the, I think you know for planning purposes we should focus on through emergency scene transports that start out with 00:20:53
with the appropriate level of care and these sort of secondary runs, you know may be picked up by private industry. Maybe the 00:21:01
animal that we create will will have a role there. But I think you know in terms of initial planning and moving forward all of us 00:21:08
have expertise in emergency services. I think we should use that. 00:21:16
And and generate a true emergency service based EMS system, not an EMS system that necessarily includes all these sort of 00:21:25
ancillary, you know, like the chakra, the non emergent run. And that way, you know, we can we can stay on track. Now we may be 00:21:33
able to broaden out and and assume those roles. And you know, I find some of the community intervention projects, you know, really 00:21:40
exciting public health and then also for the Mississippi, but I think, you know, at least initially. 00:21:48
But I think, you know, the other issue is this, not only do we need to generate and you know, an organization to take care of 00:22:29
this, we also need to be able to sustain it. And that's one of the more more difficult things. I so I mean, in, in terms of my 00:22:37
perspective, I'm trying to keep an open mind because, you know, I, you know, independent EMS versus fire based versus some hybrid 00:22:44
model, you know, that I think that sort of down the road a bit once we. 00:22:51
Actually define staffing and most importantly, funding. 00:22:59
The funding thing boggles me. I don't have near the experience on fire and EMS or medical as as the doctor says there, but I'm 00:23:05
from coming from a private business who's had poor service in the last several years. I've witnessed it myself several times. 00:23:12
Safety is the number one thing. 00:23:19
Don't fund my library, don't fund animal control, don't pay my Rd. don't plow my snow. 00:23:21
But damn sure, have me an EMS, have me a fire engine, and have me a police officer. That's number three and three tops. That's 1-2 00:23:27
and three. Everything else starts about #10 So I don't understand the funding portion. 00:23:33
That goes back to the council. I don't, I don't get it. 00:23:41
I think we're all. 00:23:45
I think we all have to understand that there's constraints by the state that allow us to do so much with what we have. But I don't 00:23:47
disagree with you. You know, somebody that's in public safety. I mean, when you ask people to come out and do a particular job, 00:23:52
you want to give them the tools necessary to be able to accomplish the mission. So, yeah, I understand where you're coming from. 00:23:57
But yeah, it's. 00:24:03
How we got to where we are, we could spend probably a few days talking about that. But I agree with you 100%. I just want to offer 00:24:09
in my mind when we talk about funding, I don't think it is appropriate to be reliant on revenue from the patient. 00:24:16
We don't charge somebody when their house catches on fire. We don't charge them when we need a police officer to come and help 00:24:24
them in a critical time in their life. 00:24:28
So I think that there's a way to do that, but we've got to set that funding up up front to fully. 00:25:08
I would like to have some sort of partnership with the private because it doesn't matter what system you put in place, there's 00:25:50
just going to be days. There's not enough ambulances, so you're going to have to have mutual aid there. But I'm not going to go on 00:25:56
too much. Charlie, I would like to give you an opportunity to speak. You, you really haven't had a chance to talk. 00:26:01
Are you there, Charlie? I heard you and then I didn't. 00:26:11
Yeah. So you kind of hit it because I was sitting here thinking the same thing that, you know. 00:26:15
We're looking to build the future of an EMS service with in Floyd County. 00:26:21
And I really believe that if we start getting into the convalescent runs or putting that into a playbook, that's just going to 00:26:26
cause more problems on the end. If you start looking at some your counties around here that are running EMS, they're really just 00:26:31
running EMS. 00:26:37
I hate to say it, I definitely don't want to see greed get involved with it. And I think you were right when you said that, you 00:26:44
know, we don't have to make a profit. The county would doesn't have to make a profit as far as Franklin Township goes, you know. 00:26:53
I know our people out there, they just want the service and I believe that. 00:27:04
They'll pay for it through the taxes. 00:27:11
I guess the biggest thing is that I have the biggest concern is, is just the contract that was signed. 00:27:15
A month ago, you know, worse men in this county operated tax money on the private entity and on a fire base. That one, we don't 00:27:23
even know if the fire base is going to work and #2 we're paying a, a private entity to to do responses. I think that a lot of 00:27:32
people in the county would appreciate if we keep that money in house and, and start kind of looking towards a. 00:27:40
County operated EMS OS. 00:27:49
So that's my two cents. 00:27:54
I'm not so sure that. 00:27:57
The fire based is county operated in my opinion. I mean that's we report to the county, we report to the commissioners, you all, 00:27:59
you all put us there. So I don't see the distinction really between a county or Georgetown or New Albany. Yes, you have different 00:28:05
people doing it's a different department, but it's all still the county run the reports up through the commissioners. 00:28:11
And funded. 00:28:19
I'm just, I'm just scared somewhere down the line that the fire base is going to become an issue within our county. 00:28:21
And I just. 00:28:31
In what way you know we're. 00:28:35
We're an EM or you know, we're on this board, you know? 00:28:38
Do we even know as Highlander made itself up to the point where they're carrying medicine now? 00:28:43
I don't know. But really, honestly, our focus is more about. 00:28:52
Where we're going as far as I. 00:28:55
Our EMS service for tomorrow getting something in line I I'm not sure where Highlander stands right now as far as their 00:28:59
certification everything maybe Matt can get back with us on that but I would really like to keep our focus more on moving to the 00:29:06
future. And I I think you bring up a good point and that's something I wanted to bring up is that I I know that Franklin Township 00:29:14
is in talks about becoming a part of a fire territory, but. 00:29:21
As it stands right now, they don't have their own fire department. They receive contractual services from Georgetown, so and 00:29:29
before then they received services from Lanesville. So you know. 00:29:35
Fire based, a fire based system doesn't exactly hadn't worked for them and it won't work for them until they get something in 00:29:42
place because, well, they don't have account that they don't have a fire department. So whatever we do, I want to make sure that 00:29:48
we solve the problem for everyone in Floyd County that everyone feels like. 00:29:54
When they have an emergency and they need to call 911, that they know they're going to get a premier trained service. 00:30:00
That responds to their emergency and they don't have to worry that that decision they made to call Amos is going to put them to 00:30:10
some sort of financial peril. You know, that's not that's not what I want to see out of the service. I want to see a system that 00:30:15
the people of this county can believe in. 00:30:20
I say this and it don't mean in any way negative towards Highlander and what is going on there, because I'd love to see that be 00:30:26
successful. 00:30:30
When I talk with people that have been involved in the area with fire and EMS, there are two names that keep coming up, Louisville 00:30:35
and New Albany Fire Department, and at one time in their history they both had EMS as a component of the fire service. 00:30:42
And in both cases, from everything I've learned from talking to people that were involved in it, it didn't work very well and they 00:30:49
moved away from SO. 00:30:53
I don't want to repeat not mistakes, but something that didn't work. Now in today's world maybe a fire based EMS service can work, 00:30:58
but there are some. 00:31:03
Barriers that will make it more difficult. 00:31:09
Just in staffing. 00:31:12
I've been around the fire service a long time. Firefighters are not normal people. 00:31:14
They're better and smarter than everybody else and they're going to tell you but. 00:31:19
You don't get into the fire service as a job, you get into a fire service for a passion. 00:31:24
And it takes a unique individual, and then it's not unique to the fire service. Law enforcement is very similar, but firefighters 00:31:28
are unique individuals. And when we test them with other things, they'll take them on, but at some point it takes away from their 00:31:34
ability to be firefighters. 00:31:40
And if we set up an EMS service where we expect the people responding to EMS to be paramedics, that's a whole level of training 00:31:46
and certification that you need to maintain. That's very distinct and separate from being a firefighter. And it will be, I fear, 00:31:52
harder to hire people and. 00:31:57
The ability to staff that could have a negative pressure on it. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm not saying it can't be done 00:32:04
very well. Those are just some concerns I have as we step forward into looking at what we think it should look like in the future. 00:32:10
I'm not against fire service, EMS, or anything like that, it's just I want the best successful system that we can create so our 00:32:18
community is getting the service they deserve and need. 00:32:23
Hey, Jason. Yes, Sir. 00:32:30
So let me clarify. The only reason why I brought that up was the point that, you know, if we start, we're going to hopefully look 00:32:33
at all different options. And you know, we have Highlander doing it in our county right now, which is going to end up helping 00:32:39
Georgetown and Milwaukee Township if they decide if if we decide we're going to a fire base. That's why I brought that up just to 00:32:46
clarify. Got you, got you. Thank you, Charlie for clarifying. 00:32:53
OK. 00:33:02
I know that, um. 00:33:07
I've had a lot, I had a lot of discussions during our, our past EMS battery boards on my thoughts on fire based DMS. And you know, 00:33:08
I've said before that I, I think Firebase DMS is a good model, but not every model is the same. You know, you have different 00:33:15
departments to do things different ways. There's a lot of different ways to. 00:33:21
Do the fire based EMS, you know, some, some fire departments, they're firefighters operate the ambulance service. Some fire 00:33:27
departments they that they're basically civilian employees working under the leadership and under the protection of the fire 00:33:33
department. They get the fire department paid service, but they're not firefighters, they're they're civilian employees. So you 00:33:38
know, I've always kind of. 00:33:44
I can't say always, but. 00:33:50
Especially over the last several months and several years, I've had a lot of very interesting conversations with several subject 00:33:52
matter experts. 00:33:56
Several financial experts, especially from like Baker Tilly and even several attorneys that they have talked about, you know, if 00:34:00
you want to do the fire based EMS, if you are a district or you are a territory, you're best to build that in on the front end of 00:34:06
your district. Because if you don't do that, you're constantly being playing catch up. And I'm glad that the legislatures 00:34:12
hopefully going to be making some changes. But you know, there's a lot of moving parts here for for things to happen for that to 00:34:18
happen. So. 00:34:24
I'm eager to see how that kind of plays out overtime. I do think it's some necessary and needed changes because the way that it, 00:34:31
it basically says right now is that Fire Protection districts are there to, you know. 00:34:38
Fight fires, teach fire prevention and stuff like that. They, they really hadn't included EMS. Now, I don't think anybody's ever 00:34:45
balked at any department for wanting to put ambulances in, in their, in their departments or anything. I don't think that you 00:34:52
would find much of an appetite for a fight from the state or anyone else to do that. But as the law reads, it needs to be changed. 00:34:59
So, and I know that there is some movement on that, but whether it gets done or not is our council has advised our board that his 00:35:06
interpretation of current law. 00:35:13
Is we cannot use fire levee tax revenue to provide EMS. 00:35:20
And I agree with Jason, I think that. 00:35:25
The legislature's just caught behind a little bit and it's probably getting closer to allowing it, but under the current law that 00:35:28
that is the situation, according to our council. 00:35:33
So I think so in that case, when there's an EMS call, do you all not go? 00:35:41
We have interpreted that we're providing services to the community, but we're not transporting. 00:35:46
So you've made the distinction what's EMS or not? No, I'm not going to. I'm asking 'cause I don't know. I'm not What I'm going to 00:35:53
phrase is I'm not going to quibble that we're doing more than just fire. I, I agree absolutely every fire department in the state 00:36:01
is doing more than just fire. But we have drawn a distinction for us currently that transporting for EMS is outside of the scope 00:36:08
of what current statute allows. CPR, whatever you need, you just won't move them from that point. That then is a. 00:36:16
Yeah, And I agree with Jason 100%. I don't think that anybody is going to come into Highlander since you're moving into that realm 00:36:24
and say you can't do that because the law says this. Somebody would have to file a court civil suit or something like that, or the 00:36:31
state would have to come down and say you can't do it and nobody's going to do it. I don't. I don't have any fear of that. 00:36:38
It's just we have decided that that's the service we're going to provide to the community and it was made in the spirit that the 00:36:46
county was providing EMS. 00:36:50
It used to be new Chapel, now it's going to be Ameripro backed up with Highlander. So we didn't feel that we should take the 00:36:55
County Fire revenue and duplicate services and then get into that Gray area where maybe we're not following the law. So that's the 00:37:01
background. Again, I don't say that as an indictment of what you're doing or the moot direction you're moving. It's just that's 00:37:07
how we got where we are today. Yeah, and Highlander, I don't. 00:37:13
You know, Moz before me didn't search out to be EMS. They end up being EMS because there wasn't anybody there or in my case, and 00:37:20
I've been on the ground where people have passed away and not. 00:37:27
I mean, I don't, I think I've read in the paper. I don't understand it. Jeffersonville is going through something similar to this. 00:38:07
Yeah. So I don't understand it at all, Jason. Yeah. So we've. 00:38:11
We're exploring a fire territory over there, which is. 00:38:16
Kind of like a fire district, kind of not, but. 00:38:20
One of the biggest issues that we have is a large portion of the city is actually. 00:38:26
Considered a TIF district, it's military reuse slash TIF. So we're not able to capture any of that money back into the emergency 00:38:32
services city. And this is basically an area that's roughly about the size of 1/5 to 1/4 the size of the city. And we also have 00:38:39
another area that is they're asking for additional service from us as well. So we're exploring at this and like I said, I think 00:38:46
looking at adding this into the front end is. 00:38:53
Has gone up, the price for equipment has gone up, the price for labor has gone up. Not only has all that stuff gone up, but you 00:40:15
know the time frame in which you get these materials and you get these products and stuff. 00:40:21
Are quite elongated just for our fire truck manufacturer, we buy a particular brand of fire trucks. We're looking at 36 months 00:40:29
before we get one of these fire trucks delivered depending on what ambulance you go with. I mean you all just face this, it took 00:40:34
what, a year and four months? 00:40:39
Or something. Yeah. So procuring equipment is also difficulty. So what we want to do is we want to make sure that. 00:40:45
By adding additional services, we're not essentially putting a negative aspect on constraining our department to be able to grow 00:40:52
to meet the fire suppression aspect of our job, which you know, every fire department nowadays you, you have to consider every 00:40:59
fire department more of an all hazards department because you do so much, you know, you do rescues, you do hazardous materials, 00:41:07
you know fire suppression. Everybody's largest call volume is pretty much medical and origin. Most people do between 60 and 75%. 00:41:14
Of their call volume is medical in origin so but but what differentiate it differentiates us between everybody else is that you 00:41:21
know we can assist with EMS police can assist with EMS for a while you know as well. 00:41:28
EMS, that's their primary mission. But at the end of the day, if a fire comes out, there's only one agency that can respond to 00:41:36
that and that's the fire department because we're the only ones, the training and the equipment to know how to get the job done. 00:41:40
Does Jeffersonville have an EMS problem today like Floyd County? I mean, who's their provider? 00:41:49
For Clark, So we don't have, we don't have, the city doesn't have its own provider. We have a county provider just like. 00:41:56
You know, everybody else, I think the city decided to do it different than the New Albany city has their own out there and they 00:42:04
use America as well. But you know, is there anybody in the state of Indiana that has moved to a fire base county wide or put a 00:42:11
territory in like this or dealt with the? I can't answer specifically, but we did ask the state and I forgive me, I don't have the 00:42:18
numbers right in front of me, but I can get them. They're roughly 700 fire departments in the state. 00:42:25
And if you take out the volunteer departments, there's about 5% that have ambulances. 00:42:33
I know Wayne Township, which was one of the largest Marvis DNS systems in the state, recently dissolved their EMS division and 00:42:40
turned it over to Indianapolis EMS, which is a standalone service, because it was sending them over a fiscal Cliff and it was 00:42:48
inhibiting their ability to procure and retain firefighters. So yeah. 00:42:56
I mean, there's like I said, there's no easy way to do this. There's no one-size-fits-all model. What works well for us may not 00:43:05
well work well for Wayne Township or anybody else and vice versa. So you know, I think we have enough talented people in this room 00:43:13
to understand what it is that we need from our model going forward. Matt, not I'm sorry. 00:43:21
If you got, I'm going to be a minute on this, but I was going to go back to what you were saying about. 00:43:30
The levy and I'm not an attorney either. 00:43:35
This this memorandum, the this memo I'm reading is from the DLGF from one year ago. But in the 2023 legislature the there were 00:43:40
some significant changes made. So this is House Enrolled Act 1454. So if you want to write HEA 1454, you can research this. 00:43:48
And it talks a lot about townships. I'm assuming if the fire department is not in the Township anymore. 00:44:00
And they have their own levy. They've taken over that part. 00:44:07
That there's a, there's a, a distinction between a Township and a district. Sometimes they can be interchanged, but there are 00:44:10
other parts of the code where they're not the same. So what they've done is they've allowed townships. 00:44:17
Or. 00:44:26
Fire territories or whoever has the taxing authority to create. 00:44:30
A firefighting fund and an emergency services fund. 00:44:37
It says the fire and EMS fund is the successor to the Township firefighting fund. 00:44:42
It changes the name of the phone, but it'll be pretty much unaffected. 00:44:48
If the Township or fire territory, my words, I'm adding that in establishes a separate fire fund and EMS fund. Section 203 00:44:55
provides that the Township may annually levy for both funds, so I think. 00:45:03
If Georgetown or Highlander would. 00:45:13
Create a separate fund and levy into that. Then you would have no problem transporting as long as every every other box was 00:45:17
checked that needed to be. 00:45:22
Reinforces the concept that the fire levy is not supposed to be used for transport. 00:45:29
Correct, but now they're allowing you to create another fund. 00:45:36
But they've adjusted maximum levies. I'm assuming that they've. 00:45:41
Let that be an increase if you're going to have two different funds now. 00:45:46
There is a. 00:45:51
Property tax passed back from. 00:45:55
Townships to fire territories and especially fire territories that are in tip districts. 00:45:58
So that might be something Jeffreyville is going through now and it's got a formula for all that. But then it talks about 00:46:04
countrywide fire districts I. 00:46:08
And almost all this was effective July 1st, 2023. 00:46:14
But it pertains to a county for which a Fire Protection district includes all the incorporated and unincorporated the counties. 00:46:20
And it talks about how to set up. 00:46:29
That board and going forward but. 00:46:31
That's probably a good one to get into moving forward and that's the information I got from our local I. 00:46:35
Reps and senators about. 00:46:42
And I don't think they're quite done like you said, it's evolving if they're. 00:46:46
They're getting a lot of pushback from counties and. 00:46:50
Like Jason said, we're handcuffed into basically 3 1/2 percent growth per year because of circuit Breakers, and when inflation is 00:46:53
at 10%, it makes it tough. 00:46:59
On the special funds or certified they got it changed but doc did you have something? 00:47:06
Or is that you, Charlie? 00:47:15
Not me. 00:47:19
Doctor Harris, were you trying to speak? 00:47:24
He said he had a 4:00, so yeah, yeah. 00:47:30
I don't I don't know if this helps or not but. 00:47:34
When? 00:47:38
This is me personally speaking, not representing anything or anybody when some of the leadership in the county started first 00:47:40
talking about fire based EMS. 00:47:45
I think that there was a expectation that she had some firefighters already on duty and if the call came in for EMS, they'd go do 00:47:51
that, or if there was a fire, they'd go do that. 00:47:56
And they didn't very often overlap, so it all workout. 00:48:02
And that's just not a reality if you're going as you know now, if you're talking about a fire based EMS, you're talking about a 00:48:05
fire crew. 00:48:08
And an EMS crew. 00:48:12
Because originally the first proposal from county leadership, this is going back before pretty much anybody in county leadership 00:48:14
today was in leadership. 00:48:18
They wanted to have the fire departments take over EMS without any revenue increase at all. 00:48:23
So that evolved as they started to get educated and learn more about the process. But there are a lot of people that have been 00:48:29
talking about Firebase CMS that don't understand it the way you do now. 00:48:35
But still feel they do we need to figure out. 00:48:41
What is fire EMS mean? As Jason said, it could be a firefighter who's an employee of the fire department. It could be a civilian 00:48:44
employee who just does there. There's a lot of different ways of doing it. 00:48:50
So I just the reason I bring this up is I just caution that if we are discussing we say fire based EMS. 00:48:56
There's not a single mental model that we should all be thinking of. Can I ask a clarifying question? What is a civilian employee? 00:49:03
I'm going to have to drop out. I appreciate you all listening to the stuff earlier and I'll follow the discussion closely. If 00:49:12
anybody needs to contact me offline, feel free to do so. Thanks a lot. Thanks doc, appreciate your help. Thank you. 00:49:19
What's the difference both of you mentioned? What's the difference between a civilian employee of a fire department and a? 00:49:27
Firefighters. So it really kind of depends about what kind of fire department you're talking about, so. 00:49:33
For example, a municipal department like mine, our firefighters are part of the 1977 fund, OK there. And in order to be part of 00:49:39
the 77 fund, you have to either be a firefighter or a police officer, all right? It does not include emergency medical service 00:49:45
workers alone. So what basically? 00:49:52
We're looking at is creating an EMS division underneath the control of the fire department that will get. 00:49:58
You know, pay through the fire department, get their benefits, you know, through the city that's negotiated through the fire 00:50:07
department. But they would not get that that 77 pension fund, they would get civilian perf not. 00:50:14
As well. Yeah, so. 00:50:24
You know how it is. I mean, you have a department, you know each rank has a certain responsibility assigned to it or attached to 00:50:28
it. 00:50:31
You know, if you have a fire engine that has, you know, a driver, a company officer, 1-2 or three firefighters, you know, 00:50:34
generally, you know, your firefighters are a certain rank, either a firefighter or private. You have your drivers who are either 00:50:41
generally engineers or sergeants of some sort. That's a rank and roll responsibility is to operate the the truck, get the truck 00:50:47
there, operate the pumps at the fire or whatever it may be. And of course the company officer who is generally a Lieutenant or a 00:50:53
captain. 00:51:00
Is in charge of the company, you know, they make the decisions on how they're going to initiate a tax, you know how they're going 00:51:08
to handle incidents so far, so forth until the incident expands beyond the needs of that singular company and you start bringing 00:51:14
more assets in where typically like a Battalion Chief or an assistant chief of some sort of a major will come in and and act as an 00:51:20
incident commander and then direct the scene. So obviously on an ambulance with two people, you don't need as much rank structure 00:51:25
as you do. 00:51:31
Let's just say on the fire company, you know there, there's, there's clear defined span of control as far as employees with the 00:51:38
fire service. I'm not exactly sure what that looks like with the Ms. 00:51:43
Well, if I could add on to what Jason said, Indiana State law has a lot. 00:51:52
On. 00:51:57
Firefighter employment. 00:51:58
There we ended up adopting some. 00:52:00
Policy had to be in compliance with state law on discipline. 00:52:05
There's, it shocked me. There's a lot of code that is specifically about employees who are firefighters. 00:52:10
So are we going to add another group of people into that pool that has to follow all that code and all that structure? 00:52:18
And the added component at our fire department where a union shop. 00:52:26
So anybody working in that Firehouse that is a firefighter has to be a part of the union. Oregon command staff is exempt. 00:52:31
Is a EMS person, are they part of that? We, we don't know how that would be structured. We'd have to negotiate with the union to 00:52:38
figure that out. So as Jason and I've used the term civilian, what we're saying is that there are some situations where you're 00:52:46
drawing a bright line. They're not firefighters. They're part of the structure of Emergency Services 9 EMS, particularly their 00:52:53
employees, but they're not firefighters. They may work out of the Firehouse. They may be under the command structure. 00:53:01
But for all the reasons for pension and some other stuff, they're not considered firefighters appreciate the. 00:53:08
The lesson? Yes, firefighters to tell you that yeah, yeah, firefighters are not normal people. 00:53:14
Kind of complex. There's no really easy way to explain it. There's a lot of lingo that's used that's specific to the people who 00:53:21
work in the job. So there's times that describing some of these things aren't as easy as what you would want them to be. The one 00:53:27
thing that I'll throw caution out but also maybe. 00:53:33
Maybe we take out, I tell my business, my accountants do not run my business. The operations people are going to figure it out. 00:53:40
What they want done and the accountants are going to figure it out. In some ways we need to fare what we need to do and then 00:53:48
someone else has to figure out how to make it legal. 00:53:51
And so pay for it. 00:53:55
We got. 00:54:00
I guess it's enough set. 00:54:02
Well, as we're creeping up on our one hour mark, two things I'd like to do. One is I'd like to set our next meeting if possible. I 00:54:04
would like to hopefully get this lined out for us maybe in in 3-4 meetings of of what kind of this system for us, what it will 00:54:12
look like. Susanna, do we have any does is everybody available maybe? 00:54:20
The first week of July. The first second week of July. 00:54:30
Is there anybody have any conflicts? I will be out of town but I can't be on zoom. I'll be in Alaska. 00:54:35
Fancy, yeah. 00:54:42
I could, yeah. Just to respond, Jason, I can be available Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, that's the 2nd and 3rd, 4th, but I don't 00:54:47
think anybody wants to come in here on the 4th and also Wednesday or I'm sorry, Friday the 5th. 00:54:53
So I could do Tuesday, went Wednesday, Friday. 00:55:01
Anybody have any issues with that, Charlie, do you have any issues with any of those dates? 00:55:05
I'd like to stay away from right. I agree, stay away from the 5th. Oh yeah, I'm good for the third. Is everybody OK with the 00:55:14
third? 00:55:19
So, Susanna, can we go ahead and maybe set another meeting for the third? 00:55:25
OK. 00:55:36
What about noon? 00:55:42
Can we do? Would do work for everybody? 00:55:44
Doesn't matter the time for me. 00:55:47
You're meaning to love. 00:55:50
So you needed it for. 00:55:52
There is a stormwater meeting at 4:30 I think. 00:55:57
That's the commissioners meeting, right? 00:56:00
So if you do 330, you know I'll do my best to leave that other meeting. 00:56:04
You want traffic. 00:56:11
I'm good with Tuesday. 00:56:17
Either one. 00:56:19
Wednesday we have a stormwater meeting. 00:56:22
I'm sorry, you are right. Wednesday, you are correct or it's not it's Tuesday. 00:56:25
So I'm sorry, Christy. 00:56:33
And we're still talking about Wednesday. We're still talking. Yeah, the third. 00:56:37
Wednesday I you can set it for 3:30 and I will do my best. Let's do that. I think we'll be OK here a few minutes late. That's. 00:56:42
Yeah, that's fine. We said 330. Yeah, let's do 330. And how about this? Just a little bit of homework for for everyone. 00:56:50
Is that 3:30 on Wednesday the other third? The third? 00:56:59
If if everyone could possibly. 00:57:05
Research a model. 00:57:08
That you really. 00:57:10
Enjoy some sort of EMS model that you think would be very applicable. 00:57:12
For us here in Floyd County, let's bring it to the table. Let's discuss it the next meeting. And it could be you, you know, like 00:57:17
for example, you already have fire base EMS, but you might want to see what that would look like in, you know, three years from 00:57:24
your all service or what would you like to see it be? Or there's another community that has a standalone service that you really 00:57:31
like. Or, you know, there's a private service that has a reputation for, you know. 00:57:38
Providing excellent care and whatever it may be. Like I said, nothing's off the table, so if everybody can kind of see something 00:57:46
and then I will. 00:57:51
Danny, I don't think that's something that for you, but maybe you can get us some more numbers from Baker Tilly. And well, I, I 00:57:57
emailed her while I was in here and she said, oh, we should have that done next week. I said I have to have it by Monday because 00:58:01
our meeting is Tuesday and I got to get that information out. So, so if you get it by Monday and share it with your group Tuesday 00:58:06
would that. 00:58:11
Yeah, I'm not sure. I have everybody's e-mail, so we'll start a group. Susanna, I'm getting ready to get a Charlie horse. I can 00:58:17
feel it happening. 00:58:20
Can you start me a new EMS task force e-mail? 00:58:25
I've been working on my deck all week and I decided to work on it this morning. And I was hunched over pretty good for a while and 00:58:30
kneeling down and I'll just sit here and I can just feel it. Just ball it up. So I'm like, oh, please don't make me jump up right 00:58:37
in this front of this meeting. I'd be embarrassing. I would send out an invite. OK, OK, for this next meeting, e-mail address. 00:58:44
As soon as I get that report, I'll send it to you all. 00:58:53
Hopefully it's I'll go through it first, make sure there's no information I can't send out, but hopefully it's just a couple page. 00:58:59
Simple. I'm not really sure what's taken. 00:59:06
Or acknowledge the kids not public. 00:59:46
So I'd entertain some closing comments from our board members if anybody has anything before we adjourn. 00:59:49
No, I'll just echo what Dave was saying. I appreciate everybody taking the time out of their days. We're all busy, but our 00:59:57
community needs this and. 01:00:02
I really do expect good work to come out of this group, and the community is going to be in a better place because of the work and 01:00:07
the effort that this group is going to do. So thank you for allowing us to participate. I have other resources that I can bring in 01:00:13
as needed. I didn't want to bring a bunch of people today, but Chief Anta, Deputy Chief Wiseman, and our council, Keith Pulliam. 01:00:20
So as we continue these discussions, I'm willing and able to tap those resources if we need to. 01:00:27
Don't know nothing. 01:00:37
Charlie. 01:00:40
Yeah, Just kind of echo the same thing that, you know, this is exciting moving forward to put some type of plan together for Floyd 01:00:42
County for the future. I will also echo that, you know, I thought Coy was going to be there today, our legal representative out of 01:00:50
France and Township and I will actually extend the same thing Mr. Moody did that he is available also if needed. 01:00:59
Thank you, Charlie. 01:01:10
I just want to say thanks for getting this started early. 01:01:11
Because we have. 01:01:14
Punted. 01:01:18
For years and years and. 01:01:19
We kind of play everything until we're forced to make a decision and. 01:01:22
And so I'm excited that we are. 01:01:26
Talking about this early and often. 01:01:30
And. 01:01:34
Like I said earlier, I'm a best practices kind of guy so I like the idea of. 01:01:36
Because I don't know a whole lot about fire and EMS, but. 01:01:44
I know if something works. 01:01:48
Let me learn a little bit more about that. So I think that's a great idea, trying to, you know, research some. 01:01:51
Because I don't even know the insurance and outs of all the different styles. 01:01:58
So. 01:02:03
I'll actually geek out on that a little bit. I think so. But thanks for getting started early so we're not. 01:02:05
Here struggling, you know, for the end of of another chapter and trying to figure things out. Well, I appreciate it. And you know, 01:02:10
just to kind of follow up on that a little bit, I think there's a lot of value in getting this conversation started early. 1st, if 01:02:18
we start talking about needing a revenue source, the sooner we can get that going, the better. Secondly, depending on what system 01:02:26
we decide to go with, if we need to start procuring equipment, that takes time. 01:02:34
It takes time and it takes personnel, you know, there's going to have to be somebody that would have to oversee that or, you know, 01:02:42
whether it be county or department or anything that can make sure this stuff's coming in. So the last thing I'm going to do is put 01:02:49
you all in a position where you're all struggling to to, to get everything going, but, you know, and. 01:02:56
By zero hour, it's been absolute chaos. You know, we need to make sure that there's plenty of time in there for us to make good, 01:03:04
solid decisions based upon the data that we receive and to be able to execute what it is that we decide to go with moving forward. 01:03:11
All right, All right. I'll take a motion adjourn Motion. 01:03:22
Thank you. 01:03:28
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Time zone, but I didn't catch the meeting time was with on my phone. It comes up is Eastern Standard Time what we're trying to 00:00:00
accomplish. 00:00:06
Got it. 00:00:13
Doctor Harris, Yeah. 00:00:18
He's just on a call. He's on. Yeah. He doesn't have it pulled up. 00:00:24
I feel like we're back in code. 00:00:29
Yeah. 00:00:35
Busy. 00:00:37
That's a good thing. 00:00:38
Our business is slowing. Is it? 00:00:40
It's starting to. 00:00:44
In the last three weeks. 00:00:48
In real steady, which is surprising, but rates are dropping a little bit. So are they? 00:00:50
I had AI had a slow. 00:00:56
You know, Memorial Day around then, but now it's. 00:01:00
It's back. I got 2 closest Friday. 00:01:04
I know it's not going on vacation is the next week and it's gonna get nuts so. 00:01:07
I hope to close on one on Friday too. There you go. 00:01:14
Where you close that? What time? 00:01:19
I haven't said it yet. 00:01:23
The Juneteenth is got everybody messed up. Every messed up, yeah. 00:01:28
The banks closed, but the mortgage companies. 00:01:34
I will get started here in about two minutes. 00:01:39
Yes. So what you want to do is just reach up and push it on. You'll see a green light. 00:01:45
Yeah, Oh. 00:01:54
I got 2 mikes. That's because you have. 00:01:58
Just make sure I. 00:02:02
Get your mic front. 00:02:03
Is a very short meeting Tuesday. 00:02:11
Oh, you. 00:02:14
Oh yeah, that's. 00:02:17
Is it tomorrow? 00:02:20
Oh, no, you're talking about the joint meeting on Tuesday? Tuesday. OK, gotcha. 00:02:23
Tomorrow is. 00:02:27
Are the good news and the music all right? 00:02:42
OK, it's 3:30. I'm going to call this meeting of the Floyd County EMS Task Force to order. The time is 3:30. If we just would 00:02:49
rise. 00:02:53
Say the pledge, please. 00:02:58
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 00:03:00
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:03:05
All right. 00:03:15
Thank you for everyone for being here today. 00:03:18
We don't really have a formal agenda for today's meeting. 00:03:21
The purpose of today's meeting really is more of an introductory meeting and more geared towards talking about what we're trying 00:03:26
to accomplish. What's this task force so I. 00:03:32
As you all know, recently we have. 00:03:39
Quite a bit of changes. We've changed our primary ambulance provider here in Floyd County. And as we have done that we have a two 00:03:43
year contract in place and it gives us a little bit of time to determine what exactly the future of EMS looks like here in Floyd 00:03:51
County. And here we have what what what the commissioners believe is to be the majority stakeholders on helping determine what 00:03:58
that looks like because there are several different models. 00:04:06
For us to kind of choose from as we move forward. 00:04:13
If we would just kind of maybe start at the end and kind of just let's introduce ourselves to the rest of the board. Michael 00:04:19
Moody. I'm the chairman of the Georgetown Township Fire Protection District board. 00:04:24
Been involved with the fire service a little over 2020, almost 25 years now. 00:04:31
Tim Franklin, Fire Chief, New Albany Township Fire. I've been in the fire service now 31 years. 00:04:36
Darryl Mills, board chair at New Albany Township. 00:04:43
About 10 years with the far our board services. 00:04:46
Matt Smith, chairman of Highlander, and I have been with Greenville Highlander, I think for five years now. 00:04:52
Charlie, you want to introduce yourself? 00:04:59
Yeah, Charlie Moon, Franklin Township trustee, past firefighter and EMT. 00:05:02
OK, Doctor Harris. 00:05:08
Hi, yeah, Tom Harris. I am the Floyd County Health Officer with the Floyd County Health Department. Also, I'm a board certified 00:05:12
emergency medicine physician practiced in the community for close to 30 years now. 00:05:19
Thank you, Doctor Harrison Danny Short, President of Floyd County Council. 00:05:27
And I'm Jason Sharp. I'm going to be the commissioners designee for this task force. I also have 30 years experience in emergency 00:05:32
services. I spent six years doing both ground and air transport and emergency medical services and also have 24 years as a member 00:05:39
of the Jeffersonville Fire Department, where I currently serve as the Deputy Chief of Administration. 00:05:47
So I think we've assembled a pretty good team to look at what the future of EMS may look like here in Floyd County I. 00:05:54
The goal is really simple there. Like I said, there are several different models for us to kind of look at. 00:06:04
There everything from hybrid models to you know private models to fire based models to standalone county models and you know there 00:06:11
there is no one cookie cutter way to look at these different models because even when we talk about. 00:06:19
And nothing is off the table here. I just would like just some good open, honest dialogue about what we each feel that looks like. 00:07:02
You know, I think that Highlander has already kind of put into place their own ambulance service right now. I don't know if that's 00:07:09
going to be a long term thing or or not, but you know, I think this is a good opportunity for us as a county to really kind of 00:07:16
figure out. 00:07:22
How we solve this problem long term here in this county for our citizens? 00:07:30
So I'm open to entertain any ideas here off the floor. 00:07:35
If I could offer just a couple thoughts. I've been doing a little bit of research and I asked Keith to do some research. Who is 00:07:42
the Georgetown Township Fire Protection Board Council? 00:07:46
I'll speak just personally for a moment. It seems to me like the state legislature is evolving and how they expect emergency 00:07:53
services in the state of Indiana to be responsive to the communities needs. 00:07:59
There is. I am not an attorney. I am not pretending to be an attorney. I expect to be. Keith usually sits here next to me and 00:08:07
after I talk, he then corrects everything I said that's wrong, so I apologize up front. 00:08:14
Back in 1993, the state created a statute, IC16-31-5. 00:08:21
And it's the provision for authorization of emergency medical services by local governments. 00:08:28
And what it did is it allowed local governments, city, town, Township, county to tax the citizens to provide emergency services. I 00:08:33
believe that this has been amended several times just looking at the statute 2016 and 2022. But that created a situation where you 00:08:42
were taxing the citizens and the money was going into the regular general revenue stream and. 00:08:50
I'll say this as politely and politically as I can. We've seen how sometimes EMS emergency services can get politicized, good, bad 00:08:59
or indifferent. And I think that the legislature has seen that also, and they've now started to shift focus a little bit. So last 00:09:06
year they enacted a new code. It's six Dash 3.6. 00:09:13
I'll start again. So if somebody I didn't realize you guys wanted six dash 3.6. 00:09:22
Dash 6. Dash 2.8. 00:09:28
And it establishes the ability for local governments to use a local income tax. 00:09:33
For emergency medical services. 00:09:38
And I'm not an attorney, I'm not going to interpret what it says, but reading it, it is very clear that you can tax the citizens, 00:09:41
but this money has to go to nothing other than EMS. 00:09:47
Correct. So you don't have to go through the. 00:09:53
Football fight of well, we need a little bit over here. We need to do this. This is more important today because they're 00:09:55
recognizing the importance of a stable established EMS service for your community. So I think that as we start talking about what 00:10:01
that future looks like, as you said, Jason, which I think is exactly what we need to do, it has to be in a dual track with how 00:10:06
you're going to fund it. 00:10:11
If we do not establish from the beginning in the stable as a political as possible, if I can say that funding source, we're never 00:10:17
going to be really successful in providing the EMS service that our citizens really deserve. 00:10:24
And then we figure out how we do it. 00:11:06
I agree, Michael. And I think that that segues into. Yeah, I'll expand on that a little bit since I'm kind of the. 00:11:09
Financial. 00:11:15
Piece not not an expert at all so I won't say expertise, but I. 00:11:18
So our financial advisor, Baker Tilly's. 00:11:23
Owes me a report. 00:11:26
Hopefully this week on. 00:11:28
Different funding mechanisms and the one that you said is is included. 00:11:31
A there's a couple other pieces to it. So there's one like you mentioned that is basically an EMS lit, it's an income tax. The 00:11:38
other one is a public safety. 00:11:44
That one is a little different because. 00:11:51
It can be used for different things and more people or more taxing units get their hands in it. 00:11:55
So that would in theory be a harder hit to the taxpayer because we would need it. 00:12:02
More revenue to get to where we need to be because the city would take a little bit I think maybe. 00:12:10
Community corrections or there's a couple other agencies that would be able to pull from that. 00:12:16
And the third piece is. 00:12:22
The any legislature as you brought up has also passed and it might be in coordinates with in accordance with this code that you 00:12:25
just gave that allows fire districts. 00:12:32
Taxing units. 00:12:41
Raise their levy to pay for emergency services out of their levy. 00:12:45
So I'll have a report and hopefully it's not overly complicated and it's compare and contrast. 00:12:51
Those options among others, and I'll be happy to share that with you all once I get it. 00:13:01
Because we're asking the same thing on council. 00:13:08
Whichever way this eventually ends up going, umm. 00:13:13
We you know we need some type of. 00:13:19
Funding source and I believe for the next two years, 25 and 26 that this is my thoughts. Not that I'm necessarily in support of 00:13:23
this, but I think there is enough support on council for the EMS lit. 00:13:30
But with a sunset A2 year time frame and then what's next? Then that can either be extended or that can be. 00:13:38
Done away with and we moved to a different model, but that will help us from. 00:13:48
You know, scratching and clawing each year to find out how we're going to pay for this, you know, so for the next two years, we 00:13:56
give ourselves a little breathing room. 00:14:00
Everything's funded and we can do our work of. 00:14:04
How are we moving forward? What's what's working? What's? 00:14:08
I'm a big fan of best practices in other communities. 00:14:13
What are you doing? How long you been doing it? Do you like it? Do you not? 00:14:17
So sometimes I just look up. 00:14:23
Council people from. 00:14:25
County up north and just call them and like, hey, you don't know me, but we're thinking about doing what you're doing. What do you 00:14:27
like about it? What don't you like and. 00:14:30
That, you know, I've garnered a lot of information from that type of, you know, reaching out so. 00:14:35
I've said before I'm not for or against any model I want what's. 00:14:45
Best. Most responsive. 00:14:51
And third, most cost effective, but. 00:14:54
With with a funding source, do you have any numbers? 00:15:00
Approximate numbers What that if you go with that Lib tax, what for? 00:15:03
How much? Yeah, I'm guessing the lit tax is going to be in the $40 per. 00:15:08
Taxpayer, again, not being an attorney. The statute says that you can implement it in tenths. I'm sorry, hundredths of a percent 00:15:17
with a maximum of .2%. So if I'm reading that correctly, that's gives you at least an idea. And also sunsets in 25 years. 00:15:26
The. 00:15:36
The judicial lit at a point. 00:15:38
04. 00:15:41
I believe brought in about 1.4 million. 00:15:44
So. 00:15:48
You know, it gets a little tricky when we start doing population versus. 00:15:50
Earners. 00:15:56
The bad, I don't say bad, but the I guess the negative for the people who live in the city is they also live in the county, so 00:15:59
they would be paying that as well. So they're already getting EMS service from the city. 00:16:07
Well that can be something that maybe is a bridge to a county wide EMS that includes the city. 00:16:17
And I just not saying that's where we go or not, but if we're duplicating services or taxing on some of the citizens, I think we 00:16:23
should talk about that when it's appropriate. Maybe not today, but that could be a discussion down the road. 00:16:29
Doctor Harris, I'd love to hear what your thoughts I. 00:16:37
Are about the future of EMS and Floyd County going forward as somebody who works in the emergency department, someone who is on 00:16:41
the receiving end of these patients coming in. 00:16:46
What are some of the things that you have seen kind of on your end that you would like to see from whatever the service is moving 00:16:53
forward? 00:16:56
Thanks. Yeah, I actually. 00:17:03
That's sort of how I've sort of been approaching distance from sort of the end Oregon end user perspective. 00:17:06
What we need to see happen is an improvement to what's really a state-of-the-art EMF system. 00:17:15
We don't have it currently. 00:17:23
We under New Chapel we saw far too many runs that showed up as basic run. 00:17:26
Rather than ALS run. 00:17:34
So what I'd like to see is appropriate EMS staffing. 00:17:37
With paramedic level runs being done by paramedic, basic runs being done by basic EMT's. 00:17:43
And I think the actual mechanics of that is something that obviously we've got to workout. 00:17:50
But that's secondary. I think the goal should be the provision of state-of-the-art. 00:17:57
Emergency medical services in. 00:18:04
But like everything else, the devils in the detail. 00:18:07
Whether it's an independent EMS service. 00:18:11
Or whether it's fire based is I think a future thing that needs to be determined and indeed is probably largely dependent on 00:18:14
funding. 00:18:19
I agree, doc. And you know, when I sit here and I think about. 00:18:25
What the future of EMS looks like. I agree. I, I think this is a real opportunity to Floyd County to be the gold standard for pre 00:18:29
hospital emergency care, not only in our region, but in the state. I think we're in a great position to see that possibly happen 00:18:35
and. 00:18:41
I think that looks a lot of different ways. I I foresee a system that does have some sort of revenue stream of some some sort 00:18:47
whether it be most likely an EMS lit or through a fire district tax, you know, I think a lot about. 00:18:57
Recognizing where we are as far as how many paramedics that we actually have in Indiana and being able to smartly deploy those 00:19:07
assets, I think of different ways to decrease the load on the 911 system by interjecting programs like community paramedicine or 00:19:15
mobile integrated health that can get out there and. 00:19:23
I'd like to see built into this component no matter whether it be standalone, private or fire based. 00:20:03
I agree. I think one of the issues that we need to be careful of though is what the military refers to is mission creep. 00:20:12
You know, the, there's, you know, other interventions like the health department, we've recently hired a social worker and we 00:20:22
found that she's been really effective in some of the stuff that you're talking about, you with the frequent Flyers and access to 00:20:28
care and things like that. You know, the other issue that comes up, and I'll throw it out there just because it's been bought up 00:20:34
before, is what, you know, is referred to as a Chuck run or a, a, you know, like a transfer from the nursing home to the hospital 00:20:40
or vice versa. 00:20:46
You know the, I think you know for planning purposes we should focus on through emergency scene transports that start out with 00:20:53
with the appropriate level of care and these sort of secondary runs, you know may be picked up by private industry. Maybe the 00:21:01
animal that we create will will have a role there. But I think you know in terms of initial planning and moving forward all of us 00:21:08
have expertise in emergency services. I think we should use that. 00:21:16
And and generate a true emergency service based EMS system, not an EMS system that necessarily includes all these sort of 00:21:25
ancillary, you know, like the chakra, the non emergent run. And that way, you know, we can we can stay on track. Now we may be 00:21:33
able to broaden out and and assume those roles. And you know, I find some of the community intervention projects, you know, really 00:21:40
exciting public health and then also for the Mississippi, but I think, you know, at least initially. 00:21:48
But I think, you know, the other issue is this, not only do we need to generate and you know, an organization to take care of 00:22:29
this, we also need to be able to sustain it. And that's one of the more more difficult things. I so I mean, in, in terms of my 00:22:37
perspective, I'm trying to keep an open mind because, you know, I, you know, independent EMS versus fire based versus some hybrid 00:22:44
model, you know, that I think that sort of down the road a bit once we. 00:22:51
Actually define staffing and most importantly, funding. 00:22:59
The funding thing boggles me. I don't have near the experience on fire and EMS or medical as as the doctor says there, but I'm 00:23:05
from coming from a private business who's had poor service in the last several years. I've witnessed it myself several times. 00:23:12
Safety is the number one thing. 00:23:19
Don't fund my library, don't fund animal control, don't pay my Rd. don't plow my snow. 00:23:21
But damn sure, have me an EMS, have me a fire engine, and have me a police officer. That's number three and three tops. That's 1-2 00:23:27
and three. Everything else starts about #10 So I don't understand the funding portion. 00:23:33
That goes back to the council. I don't, I don't get it. 00:23:41
I think we're all. 00:23:45
I think we all have to understand that there's constraints by the state that allow us to do so much with what we have. But I don't 00:23:47
disagree with you. You know, somebody that's in public safety. I mean, when you ask people to come out and do a particular job, 00:23:52
you want to give them the tools necessary to be able to accomplish the mission. So, yeah, I understand where you're coming from. 00:23:57
But yeah, it's. 00:24:03
How we got to where we are, we could spend probably a few days talking about that. But I agree with you 100%. I just want to offer 00:24:09
in my mind when we talk about funding, I don't think it is appropriate to be reliant on revenue from the patient. 00:24:16
We don't charge somebody when their house catches on fire. We don't charge them when we need a police officer to come and help 00:24:24
them in a critical time in their life. 00:24:28
So I think that there's a way to do that, but we've got to set that funding up up front to fully. 00:25:08
I would like to have some sort of partnership with the private because it doesn't matter what system you put in place, there's 00:25:50
just going to be days. There's not enough ambulances, so you're going to have to have mutual aid there. But I'm not going to go on 00:25:56
too much. Charlie, I would like to give you an opportunity to speak. You, you really haven't had a chance to talk. 00:26:01
Are you there, Charlie? I heard you and then I didn't. 00:26:11
Yeah. So you kind of hit it because I was sitting here thinking the same thing that, you know. 00:26:15
We're looking to build the future of an EMS service with in Floyd County. 00:26:21
And I really believe that if we start getting into the convalescent runs or putting that into a playbook, that's just going to 00:26:26
cause more problems on the end. If you start looking at some your counties around here that are running EMS, they're really just 00:26:31
running EMS. 00:26:37
I hate to say it, I definitely don't want to see greed get involved with it. And I think you were right when you said that, you 00:26:44
know, we don't have to make a profit. The county would doesn't have to make a profit as far as Franklin Township goes, you know. 00:26:53
I know our people out there, they just want the service and I believe that. 00:27:04
They'll pay for it through the taxes. 00:27:11
I guess the biggest thing is that I have the biggest concern is, is just the contract that was signed. 00:27:15
A month ago, you know, worse men in this county operated tax money on the private entity and on a fire base. That one, we don't 00:27:23
even know if the fire base is going to work and #2 we're paying a, a private entity to to do responses. I think that a lot of 00:27:32
people in the county would appreciate if we keep that money in house and, and start kind of looking towards a. 00:27:40
County operated EMS OS. 00:27:49
So that's my two cents. 00:27:54
I'm not so sure that. 00:27:57
The fire based is county operated in my opinion. I mean that's we report to the county, we report to the commissioners, you all, 00:27:59
you all put us there. So I don't see the distinction really between a county or Georgetown or New Albany. Yes, you have different 00:28:05
people doing it's a different department, but it's all still the county run the reports up through the commissioners. 00:28:11
And funded. 00:28:19
I'm just, I'm just scared somewhere down the line that the fire base is going to become an issue within our county. 00:28:21
And I just. 00:28:31
In what way you know we're. 00:28:35
We're an EM or you know, we're on this board, you know? 00:28:38
Do we even know as Highlander made itself up to the point where they're carrying medicine now? 00:28:43
I don't know. But really, honestly, our focus is more about. 00:28:52
Where we're going as far as I. 00:28:55
Our EMS service for tomorrow getting something in line I I'm not sure where Highlander stands right now as far as their 00:28:59
certification everything maybe Matt can get back with us on that but I would really like to keep our focus more on moving to the 00:29:06
future. And I I think you bring up a good point and that's something I wanted to bring up is that I I know that Franklin Township 00:29:14
is in talks about becoming a part of a fire territory, but. 00:29:21
As it stands right now, they don't have their own fire department. They receive contractual services from Georgetown, so and 00:29:29
before then they received services from Lanesville. So you know. 00:29:35
Fire based, a fire based system doesn't exactly hadn't worked for them and it won't work for them until they get something in 00:29:42
place because, well, they don't have account that they don't have a fire department. So whatever we do, I want to make sure that 00:29:48
we solve the problem for everyone in Floyd County that everyone feels like. 00:29:54
When they have an emergency and they need to call 911, that they know they're going to get a premier trained service. 00:30:00
That responds to their emergency and they don't have to worry that that decision they made to call Amos is going to put them to 00:30:10
some sort of financial peril. You know, that's not that's not what I want to see out of the service. I want to see a system that 00:30:15
the people of this county can believe in. 00:30:20
I say this and it don't mean in any way negative towards Highlander and what is going on there, because I'd love to see that be 00:30:26
successful. 00:30:30
When I talk with people that have been involved in the area with fire and EMS, there are two names that keep coming up, Louisville 00:30:35
and New Albany Fire Department, and at one time in their history they both had EMS as a component of the fire service. 00:30:42
And in both cases, from everything I've learned from talking to people that were involved in it, it didn't work very well and they 00:30:49
moved away from SO. 00:30:53
I don't want to repeat not mistakes, but something that didn't work. Now in today's world maybe a fire based EMS service can work, 00:30:58
but there are some. 00:31:03
Barriers that will make it more difficult. 00:31:09
Just in staffing. 00:31:12
I've been around the fire service a long time. Firefighters are not normal people. 00:31:14
They're better and smarter than everybody else and they're going to tell you but. 00:31:19
You don't get into the fire service as a job, you get into a fire service for a passion. 00:31:24
And it takes a unique individual, and then it's not unique to the fire service. Law enforcement is very similar, but firefighters 00:31:28
are unique individuals. And when we test them with other things, they'll take them on, but at some point it takes away from their 00:31:34
ability to be firefighters. 00:31:40
And if we set up an EMS service where we expect the people responding to EMS to be paramedics, that's a whole level of training 00:31:46
and certification that you need to maintain. That's very distinct and separate from being a firefighter. And it will be, I fear, 00:31:52
harder to hire people and. 00:31:57
The ability to staff that could have a negative pressure on it. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm not saying it can't be done 00:32:04
very well. Those are just some concerns I have as we step forward into looking at what we think it should look like in the future. 00:32:10
I'm not against fire service, EMS, or anything like that, it's just I want the best successful system that we can create so our 00:32:18
community is getting the service they deserve and need. 00:32:23
Hey, Jason. Yes, Sir. 00:32:30
So let me clarify. The only reason why I brought that up was the point that, you know, if we start, we're going to hopefully look 00:32:33
at all different options. And you know, we have Highlander doing it in our county right now, which is going to end up helping 00:32:39
Georgetown and Milwaukee Township if they decide if if we decide we're going to a fire base. That's why I brought that up just to 00:32:46
clarify. Got you, got you. Thank you, Charlie for clarifying. 00:32:53
OK. 00:33:02
I know that, um. 00:33:07
I've had a lot, I had a lot of discussions during our, our past EMS battery boards on my thoughts on fire based DMS. And you know, 00:33:08
I've said before that I, I think Firebase DMS is a good model, but not every model is the same. You know, you have different 00:33:15
departments to do things different ways. There's a lot of different ways to. 00:33:21
Do the fire based EMS, you know, some, some fire departments, they're firefighters operate the ambulance service. Some fire 00:33:27
departments they that they're basically civilian employees working under the leadership and under the protection of the fire 00:33:33
department. They get the fire department paid service, but they're not firefighters, they're they're civilian employees. So you 00:33:38
know, I've always kind of. 00:33:44
I can't say always, but. 00:33:50
Especially over the last several months and several years, I've had a lot of very interesting conversations with several subject 00:33:52
matter experts. 00:33:56
Several financial experts, especially from like Baker Tilly and even several attorneys that they have talked about, you know, if 00:34:00
you want to do the fire based EMS, if you are a district or you are a territory, you're best to build that in on the front end of 00:34:06
your district. Because if you don't do that, you're constantly being playing catch up. And I'm glad that the legislatures 00:34:12
hopefully going to be making some changes. But you know, there's a lot of moving parts here for for things to happen for that to 00:34:18
happen. So. 00:34:24
I'm eager to see how that kind of plays out overtime. I do think it's some necessary and needed changes because the way that it, 00:34:31
it basically says right now is that Fire Protection districts are there to, you know. 00:34:38
Fight fires, teach fire prevention and stuff like that. They, they really hadn't included EMS. Now, I don't think anybody's ever 00:34:45
balked at any department for wanting to put ambulances in, in their, in their departments or anything. I don't think that you 00:34:52
would find much of an appetite for a fight from the state or anyone else to do that. But as the law reads, it needs to be changed. 00:34:59
So, and I know that there is some movement on that, but whether it gets done or not is our council has advised our board that his 00:35:06
interpretation of current law. 00:35:13
Is we cannot use fire levee tax revenue to provide EMS. 00:35:20
And I agree with Jason, I think that. 00:35:25
The legislature's just caught behind a little bit and it's probably getting closer to allowing it, but under the current law that 00:35:28
that is the situation, according to our council. 00:35:33
So I think so in that case, when there's an EMS call, do you all not go? 00:35:41
We have interpreted that we're providing services to the community, but we're not transporting. 00:35:46
So you've made the distinction what's EMS or not? No, I'm not going to. I'm asking 'cause I don't know. I'm not What I'm going to 00:35:53
phrase is I'm not going to quibble that we're doing more than just fire. I, I agree absolutely every fire department in the state 00:36:01
is doing more than just fire. But we have drawn a distinction for us currently that transporting for EMS is outside of the scope 00:36:08
of what current statute allows. CPR, whatever you need, you just won't move them from that point. That then is a. 00:36:16
Yeah, And I agree with Jason 100%. I don't think that anybody is going to come into Highlander since you're moving into that realm 00:36:24
and say you can't do that because the law says this. Somebody would have to file a court civil suit or something like that, or the 00:36:31
state would have to come down and say you can't do it and nobody's going to do it. I don't. I don't have any fear of that. 00:36:38
It's just we have decided that that's the service we're going to provide to the community and it was made in the spirit that the 00:36:46
county was providing EMS. 00:36:50
It used to be new Chapel, now it's going to be Ameripro backed up with Highlander. So we didn't feel that we should take the 00:36:55
County Fire revenue and duplicate services and then get into that Gray area where maybe we're not following the law. So that's the 00:37:01
background. Again, I don't say that as an indictment of what you're doing or the moot direction you're moving. It's just that's 00:37:07
how we got where we are today. Yeah, and Highlander, I don't. 00:37:13
You know, Moz before me didn't search out to be EMS. They end up being EMS because there wasn't anybody there or in my case, and 00:37:20
I've been on the ground where people have passed away and not. 00:37:27
I mean, I don't, I think I've read in the paper. I don't understand it. Jeffersonville is going through something similar to this. 00:38:07
Yeah. So I don't understand it at all, Jason. Yeah. So we've. 00:38:11
We're exploring a fire territory over there, which is. 00:38:16
Kind of like a fire district, kind of not, but. 00:38:20
One of the biggest issues that we have is a large portion of the city is actually. 00:38:26
Considered a TIF district, it's military reuse slash TIF. So we're not able to capture any of that money back into the emergency 00:38:32
services city. And this is basically an area that's roughly about the size of 1/5 to 1/4 the size of the city. And we also have 00:38:39
another area that is they're asking for additional service from us as well. So we're exploring at this and like I said, I think 00:38:46
looking at adding this into the front end is. 00:38:53
Has gone up, the price for equipment has gone up, the price for labor has gone up. Not only has all that stuff gone up, but you 00:40:15
know the time frame in which you get these materials and you get these products and stuff. 00:40:21
Are quite elongated just for our fire truck manufacturer, we buy a particular brand of fire trucks. We're looking at 36 months 00:40:29
before we get one of these fire trucks delivered depending on what ambulance you go with. I mean you all just face this, it took 00:40:34
what, a year and four months? 00:40:39
Or something. Yeah. So procuring equipment is also difficulty. So what we want to do is we want to make sure that. 00:40:45
By adding additional services, we're not essentially putting a negative aspect on constraining our department to be able to grow 00:40:52
to meet the fire suppression aspect of our job, which you know, every fire department nowadays you, you have to consider every 00:40:59
fire department more of an all hazards department because you do so much, you know, you do rescues, you do hazardous materials, 00:41:07
you know fire suppression. Everybody's largest call volume is pretty much medical and origin. Most people do between 60 and 75%. 00:41:14
Of their call volume is medical in origin so but but what differentiate it differentiates us between everybody else is that you 00:41:21
know we can assist with EMS police can assist with EMS for a while you know as well. 00:41:28
EMS, that's their primary mission. But at the end of the day, if a fire comes out, there's only one agency that can respond to 00:41:36
that and that's the fire department because we're the only ones, the training and the equipment to know how to get the job done. 00:41:40
Does Jeffersonville have an EMS problem today like Floyd County? I mean, who's their provider? 00:41:49
For Clark, So we don't have, we don't have, the city doesn't have its own provider. We have a county provider just like. 00:41:56
You know, everybody else, I think the city decided to do it different than the New Albany city has their own out there and they 00:42:04
use America as well. But you know, is there anybody in the state of Indiana that has moved to a fire base county wide or put a 00:42:11
territory in like this or dealt with the? I can't answer specifically, but we did ask the state and I forgive me, I don't have the 00:42:18
numbers right in front of me, but I can get them. They're roughly 700 fire departments in the state. 00:42:25
And if you take out the volunteer departments, there's about 5% that have ambulances. 00:42:33
I know Wayne Township, which was one of the largest Marvis DNS systems in the state, recently dissolved their EMS division and 00:42:40
turned it over to Indianapolis EMS, which is a standalone service, because it was sending them over a fiscal Cliff and it was 00:42:48
inhibiting their ability to procure and retain firefighters. So yeah. 00:42:56
I mean, there's like I said, there's no easy way to do this. There's no one-size-fits-all model. What works well for us may not 00:43:05
well work well for Wayne Township or anybody else and vice versa. So you know, I think we have enough talented people in this room 00:43:13
to understand what it is that we need from our model going forward. Matt, not I'm sorry. 00:43:21
If you got, I'm going to be a minute on this, but I was going to go back to what you were saying about. 00:43:30
The levy and I'm not an attorney either. 00:43:35
This this memorandum, the this memo I'm reading is from the DLGF from one year ago. But in the 2023 legislature the there were 00:43:40
some significant changes made. So this is House Enrolled Act 1454. So if you want to write HEA 1454, you can research this. 00:43:48
And it talks a lot about townships. I'm assuming if the fire department is not in the Township anymore. 00:44:00
And they have their own levy. They've taken over that part. 00:44:07
That there's a, there's a, a distinction between a Township and a district. Sometimes they can be interchanged, but there are 00:44:10
other parts of the code where they're not the same. So what they've done is they've allowed townships. 00:44:17
Or. 00:44:26
Fire territories or whoever has the taxing authority to create. 00:44:30
A firefighting fund and an emergency services fund. 00:44:37
It says the fire and EMS fund is the successor to the Township firefighting fund. 00:44:42
It changes the name of the phone, but it'll be pretty much unaffected. 00:44:48
If the Township or fire territory, my words, I'm adding that in establishes a separate fire fund and EMS fund. Section 203 00:44:55
provides that the Township may annually levy for both funds, so I think. 00:45:03
If Georgetown or Highlander would. 00:45:13
Create a separate fund and levy into that. Then you would have no problem transporting as long as every every other box was 00:45:17
checked that needed to be. 00:45:22
Reinforces the concept that the fire levy is not supposed to be used for transport. 00:45:29
Correct, but now they're allowing you to create another fund. 00:45:36
But they've adjusted maximum levies. I'm assuming that they've. 00:45:41
Let that be an increase if you're going to have two different funds now. 00:45:46
There is a. 00:45:51
Property tax passed back from. 00:45:55
Townships to fire territories and especially fire territories that are in tip districts. 00:45:58
So that might be something Jeffreyville is going through now and it's got a formula for all that. But then it talks about 00:46:04
countrywide fire districts I. 00:46:08
And almost all this was effective July 1st, 2023. 00:46:14
But it pertains to a county for which a Fire Protection district includes all the incorporated and unincorporated the counties. 00:46:20
And it talks about how to set up. 00:46:29
That board and going forward but. 00:46:31
That's probably a good one to get into moving forward and that's the information I got from our local I. 00:46:35
Reps and senators about. 00:46:42
And I don't think they're quite done like you said, it's evolving if they're. 00:46:46
They're getting a lot of pushback from counties and. 00:46:50
Like Jason said, we're handcuffed into basically 3 1/2 percent growth per year because of circuit Breakers, and when inflation is 00:46:53
at 10%, it makes it tough. 00:46:59
On the special funds or certified they got it changed but doc did you have something? 00:47:06
Or is that you, Charlie? 00:47:15
Not me. 00:47:19
Doctor Harris, were you trying to speak? 00:47:24
He said he had a 4:00, so yeah, yeah. 00:47:30
I don't I don't know if this helps or not but. 00:47:34
When? 00:47:38
This is me personally speaking, not representing anything or anybody when some of the leadership in the county started first 00:47:40
talking about fire based EMS. 00:47:45
I think that there was a expectation that she had some firefighters already on duty and if the call came in for EMS, they'd go do 00:47:51
that, or if there was a fire, they'd go do that. 00:47:56
And they didn't very often overlap, so it all workout. 00:48:02
And that's just not a reality if you're going as you know now, if you're talking about a fire based EMS, you're talking about a 00:48:05
fire crew. 00:48:08
And an EMS crew. 00:48:12
Because originally the first proposal from county leadership, this is going back before pretty much anybody in county leadership 00:48:14
today was in leadership. 00:48:18
They wanted to have the fire departments take over EMS without any revenue increase at all. 00:48:23
So that evolved as they started to get educated and learn more about the process. But there are a lot of people that have been 00:48:29
talking about Firebase CMS that don't understand it the way you do now. 00:48:35
But still feel they do we need to figure out. 00:48:41
What is fire EMS mean? As Jason said, it could be a firefighter who's an employee of the fire department. It could be a civilian 00:48:44
employee who just does there. There's a lot of different ways of doing it. 00:48:50
So I just the reason I bring this up is I just caution that if we are discussing we say fire based EMS. 00:48:56
There's not a single mental model that we should all be thinking of. Can I ask a clarifying question? What is a civilian employee? 00:49:03
I'm going to have to drop out. I appreciate you all listening to the stuff earlier and I'll follow the discussion closely. If 00:49:12
anybody needs to contact me offline, feel free to do so. Thanks a lot. Thanks doc, appreciate your help. Thank you. 00:49:19
What's the difference both of you mentioned? What's the difference between a civilian employee of a fire department and a? 00:49:27
Firefighters. So it really kind of depends about what kind of fire department you're talking about, so. 00:49:33
For example, a municipal department like mine, our firefighters are part of the 1977 fund, OK there. And in order to be part of 00:49:39
the 77 fund, you have to either be a firefighter or a police officer, all right? It does not include emergency medical service 00:49:45
workers alone. So what basically? 00:49:52
We're looking at is creating an EMS division underneath the control of the fire department that will get. 00:49:58
You know, pay through the fire department, get their benefits, you know, through the city that's negotiated through the fire 00:50:07
department. But they would not get that that 77 pension fund, they would get civilian perf not. 00:50:14
As well. Yeah, so. 00:50:24
You know how it is. I mean, you have a department, you know each rank has a certain responsibility assigned to it or attached to 00:50:28
it. 00:50:31
You know, if you have a fire engine that has, you know, a driver, a company officer, 1-2 or three firefighters, you know, 00:50:34
generally, you know, your firefighters are a certain rank, either a firefighter or private. You have your drivers who are either 00:50:41
generally engineers or sergeants of some sort. That's a rank and roll responsibility is to operate the the truck, get the truck 00:50:47
there, operate the pumps at the fire or whatever it may be. And of course the company officer who is generally a Lieutenant or a 00:50:53
captain. 00:51:00
Is in charge of the company, you know, they make the decisions on how they're going to initiate a tax, you know how they're going 00:51:08
to handle incidents so far, so forth until the incident expands beyond the needs of that singular company and you start bringing 00:51:14
more assets in where typically like a Battalion Chief or an assistant chief of some sort of a major will come in and and act as an 00:51:20
incident commander and then direct the scene. So obviously on an ambulance with two people, you don't need as much rank structure 00:51:25
as you do. 00:51:31
Let's just say on the fire company, you know there, there's, there's clear defined span of control as far as employees with the 00:51:38
fire service. I'm not exactly sure what that looks like with the Ms. 00:51:43
Well, if I could add on to what Jason said, Indiana State law has a lot. 00:51:52
On. 00:51:57
Firefighter employment. 00:51:58
There we ended up adopting some. 00:52:00
Policy had to be in compliance with state law on discipline. 00:52:05
There's, it shocked me. There's a lot of code that is specifically about employees who are firefighters. 00:52:10
So are we going to add another group of people into that pool that has to follow all that code and all that structure? 00:52:18
And the added component at our fire department where a union shop. 00:52:26
So anybody working in that Firehouse that is a firefighter has to be a part of the union. Oregon command staff is exempt. 00:52:31
Is a EMS person, are they part of that? We, we don't know how that would be structured. We'd have to negotiate with the union to 00:52:38
figure that out. So as Jason and I've used the term civilian, what we're saying is that there are some situations where you're 00:52:46
drawing a bright line. They're not firefighters. They're part of the structure of Emergency Services 9 EMS, particularly their 00:52:53
employees, but they're not firefighters. They may work out of the Firehouse. They may be under the command structure. 00:53:01
But for all the reasons for pension and some other stuff, they're not considered firefighters appreciate the. 00:53:08
The lesson? Yes, firefighters to tell you that yeah, yeah, firefighters are not normal people. 00:53:14
Kind of complex. There's no really easy way to explain it. There's a lot of lingo that's used that's specific to the people who 00:53:21
work in the job. So there's times that describing some of these things aren't as easy as what you would want them to be. The one 00:53:27
thing that I'll throw caution out but also maybe. 00:53:33
Maybe we take out, I tell my business, my accountants do not run my business. The operations people are going to figure it out. 00:53:40
What they want done and the accountants are going to figure it out. In some ways we need to fare what we need to do and then 00:53:48
someone else has to figure out how to make it legal. 00:53:51
And so pay for it. 00:53:55
We got. 00:54:00
I guess it's enough set. 00:54:02
Well, as we're creeping up on our one hour mark, two things I'd like to do. One is I'd like to set our next meeting if possible. I 00:54:04
would like to hopefully get this lined out for us maybe in in 3-4 meetings of of what kind of this system for us, what it will 00:54:12
look like. Susanna, do we have any does is everybody available maybe? 00:54:20
The first week of July. The first second week of July. 00:54:30
Is there anybody have any conflicts? I will be out of town but I can't be on zoom. I'll be in Alaska. 00:54:35
Fancy, yeah. 00:54:42
I could, yeah. Just to respond, Jason, I can be available Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, that's the 2nd and 3rd, 4th, but I don't 00:54:47
think anybody wants to come in here on the 4th and also Wednesday or I'm sorry, Friday the 5th. 00:54:53
So I could do Tuesday, went Wednesday, Friday. 00:55:01
Anybody have any issues with that, Charlie, do you have any issues with any of those dates? 00:55:05
I'd like to stay away from right. I agree, stay away from the 5th. Oh yeah, I'm good for the third. Is everybody OK with the 00:55:14
third? 00:55:19
So, Susanna, can we go ahead and maybe set another meeting for the third? 00:55:25
OK. 00:55:36
What about noon? 00:55:42
Can we do? Would do work for everybody? 00:55:44
Doesn't matter the time for me. 00:55:47
You're meaning to love. 00:55:50
So you needed it for. 00:55:52
There is a stormwater meeting at 4:30 I think. 00:55:57
That's the commissioners meeting, right? 00:56:00
So if you do 330, you know I'll do my best to leave that other meeting. 00:56:04
You want traffic. 00:56:11
I'm good with Tuesday. 00:56:17
Either one. 00:56:19
Wednesday we have a stormwater meeting. 00:56:22
I'm sorry, you are right. Wednesday, you are correct or it's not it's Tuesday. 00:56:25
So I'm sorry, Christy. 00:56:33
And we're still talking about Wednesday. We're still talking. Yeah, the third. 00:56:37
Wednesday I you can set it for 3:30 and I will do my best. Let's do that. I think we'll be OK here a few minutes late. That's. 00:56:42
Yeah, that's fine. We said 330. Yeah, let's do 330. And how about this? Just a little bit of homework for for everyone. 00:56:50
Is that 3:30 on Wednesday the other third? The third? 00:56:59
If if everyone could possibly. 00:57:05
Research a model. 00:57:08
That you really. 00:57:10
Enjoy some sort of EMS model that you think would be very applicable. 00:57:12
For us here in Floyd County, let's bring it to the table. Let's discuss it the next meeting. And it could be you, you know, like 00:57:17
for example, you already have fire base EMS, but you might want to see what that would look like in, you know, three years from 00:57:24
your all service or what would you like to see it be? Or there's another community that has a standalone service that you really 00:57:31
like. Or, you know, there's a private service that has a reputation for, you know. 00:57:38
Providing excellent care and whatever it may be. Like I said, nothing's off the table, so if everybody can kind of see something 00:57:46
and then I will. 00:57:51
Danny, I don't think that's something that for you, but maybe you can get us some more numbers from Baker Tilly. And well, I, I 00:57:57
emailed her while I was in here and she said, oh, we should have that done next week. I said I have to have it by Monday because 00:58:01
our meeting is Tuesday and I got to get that information out. So, so if you get it by Monday and share it with your group Tuesday 00:58:06
would that. 00:58:11
Yeah, I'm not sure. I have everybody's e-mail, so we'll start a group. Susanna, I'm getting ready to get a Charlie horse. I can 00:58:17
feel it happening. 00:58:20
Can you start me a new EMS task force e-mail? 00:58:25
I've been working on my deck all week and I decided to work on it this morning. And I was hunched over pretty good for a while and 00:58:30
kneeling down and I'll just sit here and I can just feel it. Just ball it up. So I'm like, oh, please don't make me jump up right 00:58:37
in this front of this meeting. I'd be embarrassing. I would send out an invite. OK, OK, for this next meeting, e-mail address. 00:58:44
As soon as I get that report, I'll send it to you all. 00:58:53
Hopefully it's I'll go through it first, make sure there's no information I can't send out, but hopefully it's just a couple page. 00:58:59
Simple. I'm not really sure what's taken. 00:59:06
Or acknowledge the kids not public. 00:59:46
So I'd entertain some closing comments from our board members if anybody has anything before we adjourn. 00:59:49
No, I'll just echo what Dave was saying. I appreciate everybody taking the time out of their days. We're all busy, but our 00:59:57
community needs this and. 01:00:02
I really do expect good work to come out of this group, and the community is going to be in a better place because of the work and 01:00:07
the effort that this group is going to do. So thank you for allowing us to participate. I have other resources that I can bring in 01:00:13
as needed. I didn't want to bring a bunch of people today, but Chief Anta, Deputy Chief Wiseman, and our council, Keith Pulliam. 01:00:20
So as we continue these discussions, I'm willing and able to tap those resources if we need to. 01:00:27
Don't know nothing. 01:00:37
Charlie. 01:00:40
Yeah, Just kind of echo the same thing that, you know, this is exciting moving forward to put some type of plan together for Floyd 01:00:42
County for the future. I will also echo that, you know, I thought Coy was going to be there today, our legal representative out of 01:00:50
France and Township and I will actually extend the same thing Mr. Moody did that he is available also if needed. 01:00:59
Thank you, Charlie. 01:01:10
I just want to say thanks for getting this started early. 01:01:11
Because we have. 01:01:14
Punted. 01:01:18
For years and years and. 01:01:19
We kind of play everything until we're forced to make a decision and. 01:01:22
And so I'm excited that we are. 01:01:26
Talking about this early and often. 01:01:30
And. 01:01:34
Like I said earlier, I'm a best practices kind of guy so I like the idea of. 01:01:36
Because I don't know a whole lot about fire and EMS, but. 01:01:44
I know if something works. 01:01:48
Let me learn a little bit more about that. So I think that's a great idea, trying to, you know, research some. 01:01:51
Because I don't even know the insurance and outs of all the different styles. 01:01:58
So. 01:02:03
I'll actually geek out on that a little bit. I think so. But thanks for getting started early so we're not. 01:02:05
Here struggling, you know, for the end of of another chapter and trying to figure things out. Well, I appreciate it. And you know, 01:02:10
just to kind of follow up on that a little bit, I think there's a lot of value in getting this conversation started early. 1st, if 01:02:18
we start talking about needing a revenue source, the sooner we can get that going, the better. Secondly, depending on what system 01:02:26
we decide to go with, if we need to start procuring equipment, that takes time. 01:02:34
It takes time and it takes personnel, you know, there's going to have to be somebody that would have to oversee that or, you know, 01:02:42
whether it be county or department or anything that can make sure this stuff's coming in. So the last thing I'm going to do is put 01:02:49
you all in a position where you're all struggling to to, to get everything going, but, you know, and. 01:02:56
By zero hour, it's been absolute chaos. You know, we need to make sure that there's plenty of time in there for us to make good, 01:03:04
solid decisions based upon the data that we receive and to be able to execute what it is that we decide to go with moving forward. 01:03:11
All right, All right. I'll take a motion adjourn Motion. 01:03:22
Thank you. 01:03:28
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