Voters will be deciding on a onecent sales tax during a special election March 4 to benefit Bryan County EMS and reduce the cost of ambulance transport to citizens.
Brian Norton, EMS director, said that last year, the Oklahoma Legislature passed a bill that allows citizens to vote on a permanent one-cent sales tax for EMS, and county commissioners approved putting it on the ballot during a meeting last December.
“Basically, what this tax will do is it will fund EMS,” Norton said. “It will fund us to the point of sustainability. Right now, our current tax rate pays about 30 percent of our budget. The rest of it all comes from billings and grants and everything else.
“This will help us create more jobs, create more ambulances, put more ambulances on the street and also will give us the ability to spread out throughout the county and build substations around the county and cut response times. It should reduce any delays.”
Norton said that if the tax passes, EMS will be able to provide a free membership to everyone in the county. Currently, it costs $55 per year for a membership. He said that if a person is transported, EMS bills insurance, Medicare or Medicaid.
If the bill for transport is $1,000 and insurance only pays $400, the patient is not billed for the remainder, according to Norton.
The tax would also create a cost-sharing membership service where all Bryan County residents, regardless of their insurance status, would not pay a penny for a ride to the hospital, according to Norton.
Currently, Bryan County EMS has three ambulances in operation 24 hours per day and one 12-hour ambulance.
In August 2022, voters approved $5,560,000 bond to build a new facility that will give EMS the space they need plus provide for future growth.
That building is near completion and EMS is hoping to be able to move in next month, according to Norton.
“As soon as it opens up, we will be able to go to four trucks 24 hours per day and be able to sleep a fourth crew,” Norton said. “We’ve already hired the staffing.”
Currently, Colbert is the only other town that has EMS service.
“This would allow us to open up four or five more substations around the county, so that could potentially reduce the response time for a lot of different communities,” said Nate Toews, deputy EMS chief.
Bryan County EMS responds to approximately 7,000 emergency calls per year, according to Norton.
“If this passes, it will probably be September before any of the money is seen,” Norton said. “The goal and the plan within three to five years is that we could have up to about seven trucks possibly in service.
“Right now, we pretty much almost daily have more 911 calls than we have ambulances available, so we’re calling for mutual aid. Crews are getting to the hospital and transferring their patient care to the hospital real quick and running right back out and just back-to-back calls.”
Toews said EMS currently has 25 full-time medics and four administrative staffers which is all they can afford with the current budget.
“In order to hire those extra spots and create those jobs, we’re going to have to some more funding for that,” Toews said. “We have eight ambulances right now that we own but if you hire somebody to run the ambulance and then the ambulance breaks down today, it may be in the shop for two or three days. Those people can’t work and provide that service. So, you do have to have extra ambulances for backup trucks as well.”
According to Norton, the cost for a new ambulance and to stock it with the bare minimum of equipment is almost a half-million dollars.
Norton said the tax is projected to generate $5.8 million per year on average.
“We’ll be able to start increasing the number of paramedics that we have on the streets,” Norton said.
He said that when response times are reduced, more people survive.
“More people get an ambulance faster and the faster you get an ambulance, the more people survive,” Norton said.