Ohio EMS Revenues Falling

Apr. 10--The agency that oversees the state's EMS workers counts on a misbehaving public to stay afloat.

If you jump bail, don't wear your seat belt or reinstate your driver's license after a drunkendriving charge, revenues rise for the Ohio Emergency Medical Services division.

If you obey the law, revenues drop.

"We can't advocate our own funding source," said Mike Glenn, the division's assistant administrator.

"We can't say, 'Don't wear your seat belts.' "

In recent years, it seems people have been behaving. For example, 79 percent of Ohio motorists wear seat belts.

All this good behavior sent the division into deficit spending each of the past three fiscal years. This year, officials project a $1 million budget shortfall.

Today, EMS Director Richard N. Rucker is supposed to ask the state Controlling Board to transfer $3.4 million from grant funds to keep the division operating through June 2007.

"It would cover everything we need to stay in business until we find another funding source," Rucker said.

The division, which was placed under the Ohio Department of Public Safety in 1992, has 27 employees who certify 41,000 emergency-medical responders, 6,600 instructors and 65,000 firefighters across the state.

The EMS division also is responsible for funneling millions of dollars in grants for training and equipment each year.

Local fire department officials say they don't rely on the grant money, but that the funds help volunteer agencies pay for needed heart monitors and ambulances and train people to be medical responders.

But just as seat-belt fines have declined, so have the grants. In fiscal 2004, the state distributed $8.6 million to departments, compared with $3.9 million this fiscal year.

Last year, the New Concord Fire Department in Muskingum County received a $22,000 grant used to help buy two defibrillator/heart monitors. This year, it received $1,000.

Chief Brent Gates leads the 53-member volunteer department and said the grants help him pay for extras.

"We would have never been able to purchase those (heart monitor) units without the grant money," he said. "I took the $1,000 (this year) and put it toward (a paramedic) training class. It didn't even pay for the class. But hey, I was thankful I got it."

Fire departments don't request dollars amounts in grants. A computer determines the amount based on the number of runs a department makes, the population it serves and the previous year's grant.

The money Rucker wants lawmakers to transfer to his EMS division's operating budget will come from this grant fund, which has a surplus. It's a temporary fix, he said.

The division has a few ideas, including charging people who request copies of their driver's license an extra $1, which would generate $5 million a year. It's also considering a fee on auto-insurance policies.

Dan Kelso, president of the Ohio Insurance Institute, said that's a bad idea that would punish people who are responsible and buy policies.

"That's what taxes are for," he said. "If your services are important, be up front with the citizens; they'll understand."

State Rep. Larry L. Flowers, a retired Madison Township fire chief, said he is concerned about the division and wants to find a steady funding source.

The division receives 82 percent of the seat-belt fines issued by all Ohio law-enforcement personnel. By law, 54 percent of this goes to the grant fund for local departments and 28 percent to operate the division.

Rucker wants to change the law to avoid layoffs and stay afloat.

"Rather than give 54 percent of everything we need in grants, take what we need off the top -- and no more than we need -- and give out the rest in grants," he said.

Flowers, a Canal Winchester Republican, doesn't agree.

"I would not jump out in front and say, 'I would support using grant money to keep the shop open,' " he said. "That money is to go out to departments in the state and not employing people in Columbus."

Some fire chiefs, however, say EMS division staff cuts would hurt the departments.

"If we don't have the people to do the work and award the grants in the first place, that would be the hardship," said Scott Skeldon, Jerome Township fire chief in Union County.

Gates said he remembers that when the EMS division first started with a few employees, paperwork got lost and the certification process took as long as 12 weeks.

Now, certification takes days.

"The grants are important, but the office itself is more important," Gates said.

shoholik@dispatch.com

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