Ambulance moving toward taxing district

Boundary Volunteer Ambulance is “working toward” creating a taxing district to support its operations, according to the agency’s office secretary, Denise McGinnis.

This tax could be as low as $20 per year for a property with a $100,000 assessed value or as high as $40 for the same property.

With the higher of the two, “we could pay two EMTs to be on the premises, we would have faster response times and we’d probably have more lives saved,” McGinnis said. “We would just have better access for the community.”

Forming a taxing district would be up to Boundary County commissioners, who could enact it on their own or ask the voters to approve it.

“We have not addressed that at all,” said county commissioner chairman Ron Smith.

Smith also understands commissioners could make the decision to create a taxing district or they could let voters decide.

“My gut is the commissioners would probably favor a vote, but there’s really been no discussion,” he said.

Boundary Volunteer Ambulance recently placed 2,500 surveys in The Herald to see how residents felt about creating a taxing district. The response was mixed, McGinnis said.

“We needed to know what to expect,” she said.

Boundary Volunteer Ambulance receives $8,000 annually from the county, which also provides the agency with a rent-free building behind the courthouse in Bonners Ferry. The ambulance spends $1,000 to $2000 annually on the audit to get that $8,000, McGinnis said.

The ambulance gets the balance of its money from billing insurance companies and individuals.

“The problem is Medicaid pays one quarter of the bill and then we lose the rest,” she said “With Medicare, we get about one third and we lose the rest of that unless they have other insurance. We have such an elderly community who we do a lot of runs for.”

At minimum, it costs $165,000 annually to operate the agency.

An average call costs the ambulance $600, McGinnis said. As of Sept. 10, the agency had made 438 calls for the year, which equates to close to two daily.

 Boundary County Ambulance has 28 volunteers on its roster, of which eight to 10 run regularly, she said. For a volunteer to become an emergency medical technician requires a minimum of 120 hours of training.

Assuming a taxing district was approved at the $20 a year for a property with an assessed value of $100,000, it would generate $186,000 for the ambulance service, McGinnis said.

The ambulance service last year purchased a new ambulance with a $49,000 down payment from its savings and financed $75,000, she said. The agency also maintains four additional ambulances stationed throughout the county.

Supplies cost $30,000 annually and vehicle insurance is $15,000 a year.

The agency also is in need of a bigger building.