Local News

Business owners not pleased by new EMS service fee

ELKINS - About 60 people attended a packed informational meeting about Randolph County’s new EMS service fee Wednesday morning at the West Virginia Wood Technology Center.

The meeting was scheduled to run for just 30 minutes, from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., but was extended another 10 minutes to address questions from the audience.

Officials said that a second meeting on the EMS service fee topic will take place Nov. 4 at 5 p.m. at the Randolph County Commission Annex.

County Commissioners David Kesling, Cris See and Kenna Barger spoke during Wednesday’s meeting, which was attended by a large group of Randolph County business owners, many of them expressing displeasure with the new fee.

The EMS service fee, which will go into effect on Dec. 1, establishes a $0.10 fee on all items in the county that are not on an exemption list. The fee will be paid by the purchaser, and collected by the business or service provider.   

The new fee is designed to help fund the Randolph County Emergency Squad, which announced in March that it was facing a $1 million budget shortfall.

"We have to do something ... or we won’t have an ambulance service for the county," Commission President Kesling told those assembled Wednesday morning. "We’ll have to go out for a private service. We have to have an ambulance service in the county."

He said the EMS has made cuts to save money in its operations.

"We’ve cut back," Kesling said. "Our normal headcount is 37. We’ve cut back to 31. Someone’s retiring on Nov. 1, we’re not replacing that.

"We have three stations. We’ve cut Harman back," he said. "Last month they replaced for 16 days, because we’re trying to cut back on payroll.

"You’ve got to run at least four ambulances a day," Kesling said. "We get at least 30 to 40 calls a day for help, and that’s four ambulances a day to maintain. If we cut that back to two, then that cuts back on the transports we can make for the hospital, to get money for that. So we’ve got to maintain at least four ambulances. By doing that, and using the transaction fee to get the EMS back to where it was (financially), then we can look at doing away with the ordinance."

Barger said the county has "flexibility" in creating and making changes to - and hopefully ending at some point – the EMS fee.

"A selling point certainly is that we have the flexibility to change it from 10 cents to five cents, or do it away with it completely, at any time," she said.

There is a list of exceptions to the fee, but Barger said some other exceptions may be added in the future.

"There is a very clear clause in the ordinance that states that you can submit in writing to the commission a request for exemption, showing cause, etc.," Barger said. "I’ve already had several calls, and it’s perfectly understandable ... you should send in your request, if that’s what you think it should be."

She said that the EMS service fee is more equitable for county residents than passing a levy would be.

"With a levy ... the people that would be paying would be property owners," Barger pointed out. "We have a lot of visitors, tourists, that come through Randolph County that benefit from the ambulance service… This is a way that anyone that has a transaction in Randolph County can help bear the weight of the cost."

During the questions period at the end of Wednesday’s meeting, one business owner said that it wasn’t fair that the same fee amount - 10 cents - will be applied to the purchase of an ice cream cone, and to the purchase of a new car.

Kesling said he understood that it can seem unfair, but pointed out that the state insisted the fee be drawn up this way.

Other business owners present at the meeting complained about having to adjust cash registers and computer systems to charge the new fee, with some expressing fears that they will lose business because customers may not want to pay the EMS fee.

The commissioners urged those present to submit their questions via email, saying those questions will be used to create the agenda for the Nov. 4 meeting.

The email addresses to submit questions to are mlott@randolphctywv.gov, csiler@randolphctywv.gov, dkesling@randolphctywv.gov and kbarger@randolphctywv.gov.