By QUINTON SMITH and JORDAN ESSOE/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS – Two members of the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District board want an outside expert to delve into the district’s relationship with South Lincoln Ambulance, but agreed this week to wait until after this spring’s budget process to press the issue further.
During a sometimes testy meeting Monday, board members Donald Tucker and Drew Tracy asked once again to examine the district’s relationship with the nonprofit ambulance service controlled by fire district administrators Frankie Petrick and Shelby Knife.
“I’m still confused about why we have a separate organization for the ambulance as opposed to folding it into the fire district,” said Tucker, who was elected to the board three years ago.
The discussion – but no decision – took place as Petrick asked the board to sign another year’s agreement between the taxpayer-funded district and 56-year-old nonprofit. The relationship is unique in Oregon between a fire district and ambulance service.
Tucker and Tracy are the newest board members and for more than a year have been trying to get a deeper discussion why the fire district subsidizes the ambulance service with by providing staff without the ambulance company contributing significantly more to the district’s budget.
Their so-far unsuccessful attempts come as the board wrestles with years-old financial problems and voters’ rejection last November of a large new levy request, the first such defeat in its history.
Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue in Waldport also has concerns that is often responding to emergencies in the Yachats area when Yachats’ two on-duty firefighter/paramedics are transporting patients in the SLA ambulance to Newport, Florence or to hospitals in the Willamette Valley. Every other city or fire district in Lincoln County has given up providing ambulance service, turning that responsibility over to Lincoln County and Pacific West Ambulance, which provides its own staffing but charges patients more – usually paid by insurance – for its service.
Chief, two board members disagree
That idea has draw stiff pushback from Petrick, who has been either the volunteer chief or paid administrator for decades, and two other longtime board members, Ed Hallahan and Betty Johnston.
Tracy said he agreed with Tucker that the board should bring in someone from the outside to study the relationship and ambulance and fire district operations. With consolidation, he said, the district could have more control over ambulance revenue and expenses and trim administrative expenses.
“It does a great service and does a great job,” Tracy said of the ambulance. “But I agree with Don. I think it’s time for a change.”
That drew an angry rebuke from Petrick and Johnston, who last year seemed to agree the relationship should be re-examined.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Petrick told Tucker. “We are not the ones having problems. Yachats Fire is.”
But South Lincoln Ambulance is not paying for the two paramedics responding to calls — staff that costs other ambulance companies $80,000 to $100,000 a year each in salary and benefits.
Petrick and Hallahan also said if the fire district absorbed the ambulance service, the board could choose to ignore a state requirement that ambulances be replaced every 10 years. Tucker and Tracy said no responsible board would do that.
Knife then brought up wording in South Lincoln Ambulance’s 1966 incorporation papers that said if the nonprofit were dissolved, any proceeds would have to be shared with the Waldport-Tidewater Rural Fire Protection District. But that entity no longer exists and has been replaced by the Central Oregon Coast district, which relies on PacWest for ambulance service.
Tracy asked Knife, who is president of the nonprofit SLA board, why after a year of occasional discussion at board meetings that information was now only being mentioned, and questioned whether COCF&R would really want to get involved.
That drew another sharp response from Petrick.
“You guys haven’t listened to anything we’ve told you …” she said of the bits of information she and Knife have given on ambulance operations the past three years.
“How would I know what to ask if there’s been no information? Tracy responded.
Earlier this year Petrick told Tucker if he or the board wanted information about South Lincoln Ambulance he could file a public records request. However, at the following meeting she provided financials and rate information – including a June rate increase — to the board for the first time in at least four years.
The ambulance made 268 transports in 2021, according to the information, billed $119,000 after insurance write-offs and collected $104,800. There was no information on expenses and, unlike the fire district, there is no audit required of its finances. SLA charges insurance $900 for response by an ambulance staffed with a paramedic and an emergency medical technician and $1,200 for one staffed with two paramedics. PacWest Ambulance charges $1,500.
Too new to know?
Johnston weighed in that she thought Tucker and Tracy haven’t been in the community long enough to know what’s best for the department.
“This has been working for so long,” Johnston said. “Why suggest this when it’s not broken. It’s mind-boggling. You have to trust Frankie, who has been here forever and knows what she’s doing.”
Tucker pointed out he moved to the Yachats area in 2001, three years before Johnston. A retired Tektronix executive, Tucker is also the longtime chair of the Southwest Lincoln County Water District PUD. Tracy was formerly the assistant chief of the Montgomery County (Md.) Police Department, which has a budget of more than $280 million and 1,800 employees.
With only four board members in attendance – chair Katherine Guenther missed her sixth straight meeting – and deadlocked on any way forward, Tucker said he would let the issue sit until after the district’s budget is sorted out in May and June. The board still needs to determine a levy amount it will ask from voters in November.
“No one is suggesting it would be destroyed,” Tucker said. “I’d like to see an investigation done … and if it ends up the same, then fine.”
In the contract approved by the board, it agreed:
- The fire district staffs the ambulance in return for Petrick, Knife and a paid part-time assistant administering the service, including licensing, billing, collections, and ordering supplies;
- The nonprofit owns the ambulance and is responsible for all maintenance and repairs;
- The fire district provides office space but the nonprofit owns 51 percent of the copy machine, all of the office’s computer equipment and provides all supplies; and
- To accept an increase in the nonprofit’s payment to the financially-strapped fire district from $150 to $1,500 a month. Petrick said it was “to help fill out the income side of the budget.”
- Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
Petrick is far too deeply mired, and for far too long, in what appears to be a problematic situation. The whole thing smells like the back room of an abandoned cheese shop. Classic small-town stuff.