Iola City Administrator Carl Slaugh told Allen County commissioners Tuesday morning he would return July 1 with a request for how the county might help deal with financial shortfalls in the countywide ambulance service.
In January, county and city leaders signed a contract that put ambulance service under Iola’s control with the county guaranteeing up to $750,000 in revenue from run charges.
When commissioners constructed their budget a year ago, they did so with the anticipation of operating ambulances this year, which led them to include $1.38 million in the budget for emergency medical services. Other than what would have been raised by a property tax levy of 3.726 mills (about $360,000), transfers from the general fund and cash carried forward would have been tapped for funding.
Meanwhile, Iola planned to spend about $1.3 million on ambulance service within the city and for fire department operations.
Together, the two services would have settled out at about $2.7 million.
Iola’s budget for all ambulance and fire service for this year now is a touch over $2.3 million. When played against would have been spent that’s a savings of $400,000.
While the savings still is in place, income from ambulance service along with funds budgeted for fire has not met expectations.
A few weeks ago expected deficit was in the $200,000 range, and now, just over five months into Iola’s countywide ambulance tenure, Slaugh said projections might reach $600,000 by year’s end. In part, he blames overtime, accrued by responders whenever an ambulance is dispatched.
Slaugh would like to change city policy to put overtime call-ins on a stricter basis.
“I’m willing to take acceptable risks,” he said.
Commissioner Tom Williams said, as he has in the past, nature of calls should enter the equation when determining whether to call in employees.
SLAUGH MENTIONED options: Raising property taxes, drawing down utility reserves and adding a $20 surcharge to utility bills.
A property tax increase, or a sales tax as one councilman proposed, would not help immediately. Neither would generate additional money before 2015.
A utility surcharge Slaugh proposed would realize $370,000 from electric department reserves and $35,000 each from water and gas, a total of $440,000; depending on how run charges play out that might be sufficient, maybe even more than needed.
A utility surcharge might be instituted as early as July 1. Adding $20 to electric bills, with 3,720 consumers, would raise nearly $75,000 a month, and if started July 1 would bring in $450,000 the remainder of the year.
