The City of Highland is laying off a number of emergency medical service workers and will have only one ambulance operating in the near future.

City leaders posted an information sheet on Sunday announcing that as of May 1, Highland’s EMS service will no longer be serving St. Jacob, Marine, Highland-Pierron and Grantfork fire protection districts. Those districts will instead be served by the Alhambra-Hamel Ambulance service stationed out of Highland-Pierron. St. Rose Fire Protection District will stay with Highland through 2024, but may opt to join another service provider as well.

“We the trustees of the fire protection districts and elected officials of the city of Highland are all residents as well, so when we make changes to the services, we are making changes for our families as well,” the statement read. “We are committed to doing everything we possibly can to meet the standards of service our residents have come to expect while taking into account the economic realities impacting our EMS services.”

Why are all the districts leaving Highland’s service?

The service is funded in a combination of property taxes and fee services. But the city is limited by state statute in how much property tax they can levy, and calls covered by Medicaid and Medicare only pay 55 percent of the estimated costs of the service. Approximately 60-70 percent of the calls are Medicaid or Medicare, according to city leaders.

That means the service has been losing money.

“This is not an issue unique to Highland; rather, this is a nationwide issue that has caused many government-funded EMS services to consolidate, reduce services or contract the service out to private entities,” read the statement from City Hall. “These are always difficult decisions that are rarely made voluntarily; most often the governmental agencies are forced into those decisions because of financial difficulty.”

That’s the case now, according to the city: They sent out contract renewals to the other fire protection districts last year asking them to increase their tax levy to match Highland’s 0.25 percent. But that would have tripled the tax levy for some of those districts, and they opted out instead.

“The districts have known for a couple of years the rates would have to increase because we were losing money on EMS,” said City Manager Chris Conrad.

Conrad said the city found out in January that the districts would not be renewing their contracts, and began negotiations with the union representing the EMS workers at that time.

“I wanted to tell the employees as soon as possible, wanted to make sure the union knew as soon as we did,” he said.

That means Highland expects to receive less revenue and to handle a lower call volume. Based on previous years, they estimate an average three calls per day for the ambulance service once they are serving only Highland residents. According to the Highland International Association of Firefighters Local 3672, there were 186 calls for service in February 2024, for an average of 6.4 per day.

“We’ve looked at it, and we think we’ll be answering three calls a day,” Conrad said. “We will be retaining and staffing an ambulance, and it will still be a Highland ambulance.”

Conrad said it was very important to the city council to keep Highland’s EMS a locally run service and not contracting out to a private, for-profit company. But this will require layoffs.

Highland’s EMS currently has 16 full-time positions, with three currently unfilled. Another five will have to be laid off, leaving eight full-time personnel. The most recent contract was only for one year so that it would coincide with this decision, Conrad said.

Union leaders could not be immediately reached for comment.

That will reduce Highland to one full-time staffed ambulance that will solely respond to Highland residents, according to the announcement which was posted in cooperation with both city leaders and the trustees of the various fire protection districts.

“The city has requested of the fire protection districts in their negotiations with their alternate provider (to) request preference for our employees who will be laid off on May 1,” the statement read. “The city is actively working to make sure all our employees who wish to remain EMTs have that opportunity without interruption.”

As for the residents outside the city limits, Conrad said they should contact their fire protection districts about their services.

“I don’t want to speak for them, as we’re not involved in their negotiations,” Conrad said. “I know the trustees are doing what they think is best for the cost of the service they provide, and I’m sure they will find a solution for their citizens as well. There’s no animosity between the city and the districts, it’s just the cost for us to provide the service was more than they could bear and we couldn’t afford to subsidize those districts anymore.”

Original Article: https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article285281422.html