No Easy Money

The Ambulance Service Committee has abandoned its original preferred means of financing emergency medical and rescue services for Lincoln Parish as a lost cause.

As of its Thursday morning meeting, the committee was unsure how it will recommend the Lincoln Parish Police Jury pay for the only ambulance and rescue proposals on the table: those from Pafford EMS and the parish fire protection district, respectively.

The committee now knows it will cost a combined $1 million to secure those services for parish residents outside the city of Ruston for 2023, when the current contract with the Ruston Fire Department expires. Both Pafford and the fire district sub- mitted their proposals earlier this week.

But Chairman Charlie Edwards said the parish has been forced to abandon its original funding idea of placing a fee on residents’ utility bills.

“ That has become a dead issue,” Edwards said.

That’s because Entergy, one of two electricity providers in rural Lincoln Parish, has “stonewalled” all attempts to negotiate such a fee, he said.

A fee on water bills is also implausible because the parish contains some 22 independent water systems, not all of which can be easily contacted, Edwards said.

Officials are beginning to “explore other options,” but only one was mentioned — using the $10 million from the sale of Lincoln General Hospital in 1996.

The jury sold the publicly owned hospital and locked away the proceeds in a trust fund that voters must agree to unlock.

A new tax, which at least one police juror has recently suggested, would also require a public vote.

Edwards said consideration of other financing options are still in the early stages.

“We’re going to keep going,” he said. “We don’t know where we’re going, but we’ve got to get there one way or another, and we will.”

911

Among other unanswered questions is how the 911 emergency dispatch system will have to be modified to send calls to Pafford and how much those modifications will cost.

And, depending on the complexity of the changes, it’s possible they won’t be ready by the first of the year, committee member Bill Sanderson said.

Sanderson, who’s also chairman of the Lincoln Parish Communications District, said the district’s AT&T contact told the panel “it would be difficult to have that in place by Jan. 1.”

Adjustments can’t be made to the dispatch equipment until there’s a contract in place with an ambulance provider, Sanderson said.

Pafford has said in its proposal it will install an AT&T “ring down button” in the dispatch center prior to the start of its contract. But what that means isn’t clear.

The installation could be simple or more complex, depending on whether lines physically need to be run to Pafford’s communications center in Mississippi, Sanderson said.

Ring downs allow a phone to dial a number immediately upon lifting the handset or pressing a button.

Until some of the dispatch system questions are answered, the communications district also doesn’t know if dispatchers need additional training.

Proposal status

Edwards received Pafford’s $360,000 EMS proposal Monday night. He tasked two committee members — police jury President Richard Durrett and Health Hut representative Dr. Jackie White — and Assistant District Attorney Lewis Jones to review the contract and bring any recommended changes back to the committee.

Durrett said Thursday they hoped to be ready to bring the contract to the committee at its next meeting, currently slated for Aug. 26 at 1:30 p.m.

That will likely be the only EMS proposal, as Jones said Acadian Ambulance Service recently expressed interest in throwing its hat in the ring, only to later decline.

“ Yesterday I got an email indicating that their board had met, and at this time they are not interested in making a proposal,” Jones said.

For rescue, with Ruston having pulled out of the picture for 2023, the fire protection district is the only possible provider.

The district’s board passed its proposal Tuesday night. It asks the jury for $478,000 to $502,000 in yearly operating expenses, plus $439,500 in capital expenses for new equipment spread out over the next three years, plus a $500,000 one-time cost share for a new rescue truck.

Fire board Chairman Richard Aillet said the district would need to double its paid staff — from 6 to 12 — in order to be the primary response agency for both fire and rescue calls.

This staff increase would allow for two paid and trained personnel dedicated to fire response and two dedicated to rescue response to be on hand per shift.

Aillet said the district currently has two sets of rescue equipment, both of which are aging and have no replacement parts.

“We can respond now (to rescue calls),” he said. “But we’d feel better with new equipment.”