G'town revises city ambulance cost

By Clay Bailey

Germantown may reconsider a plan to provide its own ambulance service.

Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy's administration presented new, lower costs for a city ambulance service to aldermen last week. She plans to provide information on all the city's ambulance options - contracting with Shelby County or a private vendor, or launching a service - to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen without recommendation, and let aldermen make a decision at their March 25 meeting.

Goldsworthy, county Mayor Mark Luttrell and Germantown staff members met Friday about the subject.

"There's some information out there that is confusing and not exactly on point," Luttrell said before the meeting. "We've got to get that cleared up. The last thing we need is confusion surrounding ambulance service."

While Germantown officials re-evaluate the lower numbers provided by the administration to provide city service, they say they need information from the county to compare its ambulance service cost.

At the same time, Tom Needham, county Public Works director, says county officials can't calculate their cost and level of service until they know whether Germantown is participating.

"It's not figured out, and it won't be figured out until all the entities decide whether they want to be part of the ambulance service or not," said Needham, whose oversight includes fire service. "We're waiting until Germantown decides which way they want to go."

Both governments need to make a decision soon because ambulance costs are a factor in annual budgets. The current ambulance contract expires June 30.

Unincorporated Shelby County and five of the six suburbs are covered by the county's current contract with private provider Rural/ Metro. Bartlett is the exception.

Germantown appeared poised to join the county ambulance contract last month after aldermen voted 3-2 not to fund a city service. Another option was to have a private vendor - American Medical Response - provide the service exclusively for Germantown.

After the Germantown vote, the county added a service option that would be based on shifting units according to call volumes.

Last Monday, Germantown aldermen were told that instead of having two ambulances housed in Germantown firehouses as is currently the case, there would only be one during the day, and none in the city overnight. Several aldermen said they considered that an unacceptable, lower level of service.

But Needham said there is "no downgrading in service at all." He said the private company providing service must still respond to calls inside the various municipalities within 9 minutes 90 percent of the time.

"The only thing we've done, is that we've taken ambulances that historically are sitting there and not being used, but we are paying for them to sit there, and we've taken them off the road," Needham said.

But he said that after the concerns expressed by Germantown leaders, the vendors agreed to add a second ambulance in the suburb at night.

Goldsworthy said there is a benefit to having ambulances stationed in Germantown firehouses. When the suburb's firefighters are dispatched for a call, ambulances in the stations accompany them and don't wait for dispatch through Shelby County.

Needham said the county is looking for "the most cost-effective way" to provide the service to all the governments in the county contract, and needs to decide soon.

When asked about a timetable for a decision, Needham replied: "We needed to get this done a month ago."

Originally published by Clay Bailey bailey@yourappeal.com 901-529-2393 .

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