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CELINA - Voters in most parts of Mercer County will see an additional five-year, 1-mill property tax levy for the newly established Mercer County Joint Ambulance District on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
It will appear on ballots in Celina, Coldwater, Mendon, Montezuma and Rockford precincts as well as East Jefferson North and South, West Jefferson, Center, Butler East, Butler West, Dublin, Mendon Union, Franklin East, Franklin West, Hopewell, Liberty, Washington and Blackcreek precincts.
The levy would generate $1.18 million annually and cost the owner of a $100,000 home $35 per year. It would commence in 2024 and be first due in calendar year 2025, according to the ballot language.
The additional tax would be collected for the purpose of ambulance and emergency medical services.
Specifically, it would provide for on-call pay for six volunteers -three at the Coldwater EMS branch and three at the Rockford EMS branch. Volunteers would earn $5 for every hour they're on call.
"The plan behind that is to encourage the volunteers that we do have to pick up the on-call (shifts)," county EMS Director Kara Smith said during a levy presentation to Celina Rotarians on Tuesday afternoon. "It also entices more people from the community to join the EMS."
Furthermore, the levy would fund four full-time paramedics to provide support for volunteers on squad runs. The paramedics would be dispatched to meet ambulances anywhere in the district via "chase vehicles" and provide "the highest level of prehospital care," Smith said.
The additional paramedics would staff night and weekend shifts, she added.
Smith noted that she and EMS administrative clerk Michelle Garman are currently providing similar backup while manning the EMS office.
When calls come in, they head out in an agency SUV to assist EMS branch volunteers or full-time paramedics on scene.
"We've kind of proven us running Monday through Friday during the day that the chase vehicle does work," she said. "Squads are getting out the door. We're going, Celina's not having to help cover runs for Coldwater or Rockford. So it's shown that it's worked; now we just need to get the staffing there for when we're not at the office."
The full-time Celina Fire Department that doubles as the Celina EMS branch would benefit, too, Smith said.
"It will allow for additional staffing for Celina Fire," Smith said. "Their current staffing should be five guys per shift. That number ultimately should be seven or eight per shift as busy as they are. They are working at staffing levels from the 1970s."
Smith said 90% of the fire department's runs are EMS related.
"What will happen if the levy fails? Well, there'll be delayed response time as we have less personnel. So people calling 911 may have to wait 45 minutes to an hour for a squad," she said. "Someone experiencing a heart attack, it is very important for them to get the medical intervention they need immediately. The longer they go having that heart attack, the more damage caused to the heart. It's the same with a stroke."
Officials spent many years discussing ways to ease the burden of the undermanned, chronically-strained county EMS system that covers 345 square miles. One idea was to put a property tax on the ballot to hire more full-time help and switch to to a paid-on-call system for volunteers.
It's somewhat similar to that of the former St. Henry EMS branch which broke away a few years ago to form the South Central Mercer Fire District serving Recovery, Gibson, Granville and Marion townships and the villages of Burkettsville, Chickasaw, Fort Recovery and St. Henry.
But county commissioners can only place a countywide levy on the ballot, according to commissioner Dave Buschur. Hence a joint ambulance district was formed to put a property tax levy on the ballot in the precincts served by the traditional county EMS system.
The county EMS system has branches manned by volunteers in Rockford and Coldwater. Celina, which is also part of the system, has paid firefighters/EMS personnel in addition to 12 auxiliary members at this time, according to Smith.
"Celina has a chief that works full-time, and they have 11 full-time personnel. They are down big time," Smith said. "That magic number for them should be 15 full-time plus the chief. The chief is actually working on shift right now because they are so short-staffed."
Coldwater EMS has 29 volunteers and Rockford EMS 32 volunteers. While those numbers may seem sufficient on paper, many of the volunteers have jobs outside the towns where they reside and can't respond to calls while working, "leaving … maybe one or two people in town at any point in time," Smith said.
"Also with that number, out of the 29 and 32 you might only have 10 that continuously run," she said.
In 2015, there were 2,350 calls for service for Coldwater, Celina and Rockford branches combined, according to Smith. That number surged to 2,963 in 2023, with less staff to respond.
"Some of the reasons for the increased call volume is your baby boomer population's getting up in age, experiencing more medical issues, heart attacks and strokes," Smith said.
Also, Smith said unfortunately, many people use EMS as their primary care provider, requesting assistance for minor ailments that would have been unheard of back in the day.
The EMS system is largely self-funded, with 90% of its revenue coming from billing to Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance companies for runs. About 10% of the funding comes from a $2.50 per capita charge assessed in each township and municipality in the coverage area. Celina pays a flat fee of $26,000 annually.
The per-capita charge would go away should the levy pass, Buschur said.
