No Questions, Please
Officials provide information, but no answers, about EMS fee
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ELKINS – Dozens of people attended a special meeting Wednesday evening seeking information about Randolph County’s new EMS service fee; however, county officials did not allow any questions to be asked by the public during the event.
The Randolph County Commission offered what it described as an informational meeting concerning the new fee at the Commission Annex building Wednesday evening, which drew more than 30 local business owners. Commissioners approved the new fee proposal in September.
Wednesday’s event was a follow-up to a 40-minute information session the County Commission offered the public at the West Virginia Wood Technology Center on Oct. 21. At the first meeting, County Commissioners David Kesling, Cris See and Kenna Barger spoke for half an hour, and then fielded 10 minutes of questions, providing responses for the nearly 60 Randolph County business owners in attendance.
During Wednesday evening’s meeting, however, Barger opened by saying she wanted to make sure everyone attending understood that Wednesday’s event was an informational and educational presentation only, and that commissioners would not respond to questions.
“There will be no deliberation among the commissioners concerning amendments, changes or additional official action,” Barger said Wednesday evening. “The reason for that, of course, would be any thing that could happen down the road that could be business of the County Commission, cannot be discussed outside of those meetings.”
Randolph County Prosecuting Attorney Michael Parker, who was in attendance Wednesday as the County Commission’s attorney, explained why no questions could be asked during the informational presentation.
“If there is something that the County Commission may take action on at a later date, they are specifically prohibited under the Open Meetings Act from addressing that question,” Parker said.
The fact that all three commissioners answered questions about the EMS fee during the Oct. 21 public session was not mentioned Wednesday evening.
An EMS service fee was adopted by the County Commission earlier this year, but then later suspended after the state Tax Department informed the Commission that the fee violated the streamlined sales tax agreement.
The Commission then approved an excess levy that was to replace the original fee. The levy was originally proposed to be on the General Election ballot this month. In September, however, the Commission rescinded the excess levy vote after learning it could change the original ENS service fee ordinance to a basic flat transaction fee.
The new EMS service fee 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, collected by the business or service provider, and is scheduled to go into effect on Dec. 1. It was designed to help fund the Randolph County EMS, which announced in March that it was facing a $1 million budget shortfall.
“When we learned about the problem EMS was facing, we tried to support them the best that we could, and in our yearly budget we budgeted them $110,000 from the county to help them with general expenses,” Kesling said at Wednesday’s event. “They were running into more than that and we didn’t have more money to keep supporting them with money.
“So, in early spring we started talking about ways to help, and we came up with that first transaction fee, and it was percentage-based. The state found a problem with i,t so we put it on pause. We went to the state attorney general and they gave us an opinion on what to do and we came up with a service fee that has to be on personal, tangible goods that are purchased in the county… When we got told we couldn’t do the first fee, we decided to do a levy and as soon as we voted on it, we found out we could do the fee we are doing now.”
Randolph County Emergency Squad Director Kurt Gainer also spoke at Wednesday’s meeting.
Gainer, like Barger, presented some facts and figures on PowerPoint to let those in attendance know where the money from the fee would be going and why there was a shortfall in the EMS budget.
“Over the last year, one of the big issues we ran into was the government shutdown,” Gainer said. “Probably about 80% of everything we bill out is Medicaid and Medicare services, and it all comes from the Center of Medicare services fund. And whenever they go into government shutdown everything slows down tremendously and funding is slow to come back. So we were five to six months without getting any revenue at all.”
Gainer also pointed to a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security this spring, which provides the EMS with grant opportunities, and the rising costs of equipment, medication, and other essential items as reasons for budget issues.
“It’s amazing to think that a handheld radio costs $6,000 and technology has gotten into our field also,” Gainer said. “We now have power lift cots, which are excellent and great for the employees with lifting, but the price is high. And we have maintenance costs associated with everything. We have 10 units across the county, and everything has to meet the state standard, and with that you’re looking at about $450,000 per unit.”
Local barber Bill Arbogast, who owns a barbershop on Second Street in downtown Elkins, attended Wednesday’s meeting, and said afterward he would like to have seen the county officials allow questions to be asked.
“I think it would have been better for everyone there if some questions could have been asked,” Arbogast told The Inter-Mountain after the meeting. “They didn’t talk about anything new and it didn’t seem like they covered a whole lot.
“As far as the fee goes, I would sooner just donate to the Emergency Squad monthly or whatever, because you never know how it’s going to go from day-to-day. To be honest, I really don’t think the fee is very fair to the small businesses in town. I would have rather seen it be some type of one-time thing that we pay.”
The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley
More than 30 business owners attended an informational presentation Wednesday evening at the Commission Annex in Elkins.