[0:15] No, no, no.

[0:28] We are live so everybody knows >> everything's being live streamed.

[0:52] on tour again. March.

[1:09] [clears throat]

[1:11] You >> are good.

[1:18] » Did you go to that CEO thing?

[1:37] » I did. >> Wasn't very good.

[1:41] had some great good speakers

[1:52] GE.

[2:08] » I was down And I I answer

[2:15] what we're going to do with this replacement,

[2:19] you know,

[2:35] we will interview There's some people in the

[2:46] » All right. Stand for the pledge of allegiance.

[2:54] » I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the

[3:00] republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and

[3:07] justice for all.

[3:12] » All right. Thank you everybody. We have a a number of people here and uh

[3:17] specifically for this Lennox ambulance funding meeting. So um

[3:24] want to welcome everybody here. Do we have any additions to the agenda

[3:28] this evening? You can catch us, Justin. >> Just okay. So, so with 3.1, we have

[3:35] Sharon uh presenting, but it will be with just in favor as well. So, that's

[3:39] the only change for that. So, I'll look for a motion to approve the agenda as

[3:44] amended. >> So, move

[3:47] a second. >> Second.

[3:50] » All right. All in favor signify by saying I.

[3:53] » I. >> I.

[3:54] » Oppose. Same sign. All right. On to the next one. We're just going to

[3:59] quick introduce each other since we're not quite sure. Maybe some of us know

[4:03] who everybody is, but some maybe not. So, um, and we'll go around the table.

[4:07] So, I is everyone that's like is anyone in sitting over here on the committee as

[4:13] well? Maybe just Christie on the committee, but okay. Everyone

[4:18] else is here for the public. So, we'll introduce myself um and then we'll go

[4:23] around the table. So, Danny Fergen, I'm representing the city of Lennox here and

[4:27] I'm the mayor. Amy Harms, I am incoming Lincoln County

[4:32] Commissioner. >> Jim Schmidt, outgoing Lincoln County

[4:36] Commissioner. [laughter] >> Joanie Extro, again, income Lincoln

[4:41] County Commission. >> Alan Perry, I'm the director of EMS for

[4:44] Lance. >> Crystal Jacobson, mayor of Warthing.

[4:47] Lauren Vandril, city of 1x43. >> Uh Justin Wland, I'm the city

[4:52] administrator with the city of T. Uh Tyson Dollar. I'm the finance officer

[4:57] for the city of Linux. >> I'm Jess. I'm the media administrative

[5:01] assistant for the city of Linux. >> Uh Justin Faber. I'm a data scientist. I

[5:05] specialize in public safety analytics

[5:12] officer, town chancellor. >> Paul Anderson, Lincoln County Office.

[5:17] » Welcome. And then Christy uh Gr is honoring you as well. So she's got a lot

[5:22] to say. So, she's sitting back there, right?

[5:26] » Introduce themselves to from what townships and stuff they're from.

[5:28] » Yeah, let's do that. We have some people representing from the community and

[5:31] township. So, let's just go around and just speak loudly so we can hear you.

[5:35] We're streaming this tonight, too. So, that way we can come back and um listen

[5:40] to it as well, but there's probably some people joining us remotely. I Oh, sorry.

[5:43] One other person. We have someone on speaker phone here, right?

[5:48] » Lind from T >> Lyn Lind from T. So he's here joining us

[5:52] and he's on city council there and on the fire department, right? So okay,

[5:57] we'll start over here. Can you introduce yourself?

[5:59] » My name is Sheila Helman, Turner County Commissioner.

[6:02] » Turner County. Okay, >> go ahead.

[6:05] » I'm Jim Bo with Perry Township. >> Okay. Cheryl Township Clerk Christy

[6:12] first city township

[6:17] » Mike Philippy Grand Township Delaware Township Alan River

[6:24] Township >> Marlene Sweder Township

[6:28] » Arlland Hagen Grand Township and Jonathan Hagen Grand Township

[6:33] » great well thank you for taking some time out of everyone's busy schedule and

[6:37] coming here tonight. So, um there'll be plenty of of time for um sharing and

[6:43] discussion, too. And um I just want to open up if anyone from [clears throat]

[6:50] um the public has anything visitors to be heard this evening. Um we will have

[6:55] some open general discussion time later too but but if there's anything from

[6:59] visitors to be heard tonight want you to come forward.

[7:06] Okay let's move on to the first one new business we have Lennux ambulance

[7:10] presentation. So Sharon and um Justin right in favor.

[7:16] » Yep. So Justin, you're gonna kick it off and then Sharon. Yeah. And even the next

[7:20] agenda item will kind of flow into uh together too. So um feel free to um if

[7:27] you've got questions, maybe wait till some of their presentation's done, but

[7:31] feel free to ask and then we'll try to cover everything, too. So go ahead.

[7:35] » Yeah. All right. So Justin Paper from Paper Analytics. Just some quick

[7:39] background on uh where I kind of get all this data from and kind of how I'm

[7:43] working with all these different agencies. So, uh, some of the agencies I

[7:46] work with are direct contracts like patient care out of Sou Falls. Uh, that

[7:50] I'm also part of the rural service designation grant through the state of

[7:54] South Dakota and I work with I think we're up to 40 now different agencies

[7:59] across South Dakota. Uh, so a lot about 70% of the footprint of South Dakota EMS

[8:04] now comes through part of that platform which is fantastic. It allows for some

[8:08] pretty cool things that we'll talk about here in a second. Uh the only service in

[8:12] Lincoln County that I don't directly work with is Hudson. And so it's they're

[8:15] a smaller service. So as we're kind of going through uh the data today and the

[8:19] different kind of visuals that I have on these pages, just know that that data is

[8:23] not in there. Uh they are a a very small service. So it wouldn't really mess with

[8:29] the numbers very much at all, but just know that it's not there. Uh so this is

[8:33] the packet that I'm going to be going through. So this is the one you guys

[8:35] want to grab uh and kind of walk through with me. and we'll kind of go through

[8:40] the way that I broke it out. So, basically, uh, the purpose of what I'm

[8:44] trying to do is is be what I call agency agnostic. So, I've kind of present to

[8:49] you guys what EMS looks like in Lincoln County, uh, for the different

[8:52] communities across Lincoln County, but nothing in here is specific to just one

[8:57] service. So, when you go to the page that talks about Lennox EMS in terms of

[9:01] the actual EMS calls within the city of Lennox, that's not just uh the Lennox.

[9:08] Now granted, that's a overwhelming majority of the calls, but it's not just

[9:12] their calls. Same thing with TE and Harrisburg. They're in here as well. Uh

[9:16] it's not going to just be primary service ambulance that's responding.

[9:19] It's [clears throat] also going to be additional calls that are handled by

[9:22] other services and they're all in here. So, uh the way that I broke it out was I

[9:25] kind of have basically two pages for each different section. So, we the first

[9:30] two pages is all of Lincoln County. So this is all of the data that I have, all

[9:34] of the services that respond to all of the communities within it. And so the

[9:39] very top third of the page is kind of two line graphs. The left hand side is

[9:44] the last 12 months of EMS volume for the county, which is 1712. And then the

[9:51] right hand side, this is kind of the cool stuff that we get to do now that we

[9:54] get uh you know basically 70 80% of the state's EMS data flowing through us is

[9:58] we can train what's called a machine learning model that actually learns what

[10:03] South Dakota EMS looks and feels like and we can use that to predict what EMS

[10:09] is going to look like in the future. And so we kind of go through uh and not only

[10:13] do I train the model on each of the individual services that I work with. So

[10:16] there are models that is just specific to Linux and I I send that to Allan each

[10:20] month and he gets to see for his [snorts] service what that looks like

[10:23] but we also train it on all EMS data across the entire state. Uh it's

[10:28] interesting to see how things kind of move across the state. Uh if there's

[10:31] like an illness that that starts up in Sou Falls, a lot of times they'll move

[10:34] to Chamberlain and they move to Rapid. And so we kind of use that to kind of

[10:38] help the services better understand when they're going to see spikes in volume.

[10:42] And so I send them a monthly report and it shows so they kind of get an idea of

[10:45] hey you know that the report's showing we might see a 10 or 15% increase next

[10:49] month in volume because of uh XYZ reasons. And so we can see on the right

[10:55] hand side uh that it's predicting uh just over 1760 calls uh for all of

[11:01] Lincoln County next year. So a modest increase uh certainly not uh a very

[11:06] large increase. Uh, one thing that's interesting to note, uh, for, and this

[11:10] is true of a lot of East River counties, is there's not a ton of seasonality to

[11:16] the data. Uh, when you go and you get into like services like Kuster and and

[11:20] Hill City that I work with, they're so uh, like tourism driven that their

[11:25] volume in May, June, July, and August doubles compared to what it is the rest

[11:30] of the year. So like the the way that they have to engage resources and stuff

[11:34] like that is different because they have to be prepared [snorts] for double the

[11:37] volume half of the year and then half of the volume uh the other half of the

[11:41] year. So it's actually sometimes kind of nice to have relatively stable volume so

[11:46] you kind of know what to expect uh for volume for the county and and then can

[11:49] use resources uh for that. Uh the middle of the page is another line graph which

[11:55] is the last five years of volume for the county so that we can see what the

[11:59] volume was in 22 23 24 and 25. Uh again relatively stable. Uh there is

[12:06] some noticeable variance in it. We see that it drops in 24 to to below 1600 and

[12:11] then back above uh725 again. Uh, one thing that's always worth noting for EMS

[12:16] and for really public safety in general, uh, is that public safety volume is

[12:21] incredibly weather dependent, uh, if we get some really bad weather years and

[12:25] some terrible March flooding and some horrible July thunderstorms, uh, volume

[12:29] spikes. If we get, uh, terrible winter weather, especially if it's at like 5:15

[12:33] at night, you're going to see five, six times normally in less volume than you

[12:37] normally expect. So, timing of weather uh, can influence volume across an

[12:41] entire year sometimes. And so I wouldn't put too much stock into like small jumps

[12:47] and small reductions in volume because of how much of an impact weather has.

[12:52] And then the very bottom graph uh shows the average response time. And so we can

[12:57] see for for Lincoln County the overall average is is just under 10 minutes and

[13:01] 30 seconds. And that's from time of dispatch to knock on the door. So that

[13:05] includes both the in route time uh and the drive time. uh in terms of comparing

[13:10] that number to uh you know 40 other services that work across the state,

[13:14] it's very good. Uh there's a lot of people that would trade uh for for

[13:18] 10-minute average response times across the county. Uh so you guys have a very

[13:22] good thing going here in terms of what you see for uh coverage across the

[13:26] entire county. And we'll kind of get to a little bit more of that on the back

[13:29] page, too. Uh then the second page of the of the breakdown, the top two/irds

[13:36] is a is a bar chart of the different types of EMS calls that are being

[13:40] responded to. So we can see that the the most common call is a fall call. Uh that

[13:46] is probably the case for over half of the services that I work with. Uh if

[13:50] they have a a large hospital station or like Chamberlain has basically that air

[13:55] medical base out there, then EMS transfers can kind of jump to the top.

[13:59] Uh but really when it comes to like 911 volume falls and sick person being the

[14:03] top two is uh is far and above the most common. And then you can kind of see as

[14:08] you go down what some of the more common uh responses are across the entire

[14:11] county. Uh the colors of the bars actually mean something. So the volume

[14:16] you're looking at right there is actually the volume of those calls over

[14:18] the last two years. And then the color represents the growth or reduction in

[14:24] that type of call from the two years before that. So really it's encompassing

[14:28] four years. So over the last four years, the last two years we saw 471 fall calls

[14:34] and gray means it's basically dead even. So we didn't see any growth or any

[14:37] reduction in that. Uh sick person calls, you see that it's a little bit darker

[14:41] green. So it's probably and the legend is a little bit small when it's printed.

[14:44] But the bottom right hand corner of the chart, you can see a little legend that

[14:47] shows you what that represents. And it's probably about a 10%ish increase. Uh

[14:52] what I did find interesting as I was kind of going through uh all of Lincoln

[14:56] County really was that for basically every single jurisdiction across the

[15:00] board, [snorts] injury accidents were down two years

[15:03] compared to the two years previous to that. Uh so I I just started working

[15:08] with with Linux and these guys just this last year. here. So, I don't have a ton

[15:10] of experience with Lincoln County, but if you guys have been making changes uh

[15:14] in terms of like putting up uh traffic signals and stuff like that on on higher

[15:19] uh driven areas, uh it's it's down consistently everywhere across the

[15:23] entire county. So, if you guys were looking for some data to support some of

[15:27] those decisions you've made, that certainly supports it because that's a

[15:29] it's a really really good sign. Uh the very bottom third of the page is volume

[15:35] by hour of day and it kind of shows you where we see the most EMS volume by time

[15:40] of day and where we see the least. Uh when you get to, you know, kind of 1700

[15:45] calls across an entire county where you have a mixture of uh suburban and rural,

[15:49] this is a very common uh arc that you're going to see where the the volume starts

[15:53] to pick up at about 8:00 in the morning and maybe starts to tail off at between

[15:58] 8 and 10 p.m. at night. Uh and then after those first two pages, exactly

[16:03] what we talked about is just going to repeat itself over each two page. Uh

[16:08] first one is then going to be for Linux where we're looking at Lennux's volume

[16:13] uh and their average response time within the city of Lennox which is 6

[16:16] minutes and 42 seconds. It is the uh the fastest service in the county. Uh and

[16:21] then the next page after that is again the types of incidents that we see again

[16:27] within the city of Lennox. Uh so it's not just the Lennox service, it's truly

[16:32] within the boundaries of the city of Lennox and again what what hours of day.

[16:36] And it is interesting to kind of see how as you kind of go through the different

[16:40] cities, uh they each kind of have a little bit different variance to when we

[16:45] see volume start to increase. Now during the day is always going to be higher

[16:49] than night and you'll see some of them where the the volume uh spikes more in

[16:54] the middle of the day whereas like Linux the biggest spikes for Linux are at 9:00

[16:58] in the morning when people are leaving probably go to work and then 6 p.m.

[17:02] night people are coming home which is tea and Harrisburg are probably going to

[17:06] be very very similar where you're going to see a much larger

[17:10] prevalence and that in that growth kind of during those kind of rush hours as we

[17:14] have a lot of significant commuter traffic in and out of Sou Falls.

[17:20] Uh so then after Linux then it's to Canton again we can see last 12 month

[17:25] volume for the city of Canton. Again, this is not the Canton service. It's the

[17:28] actual city. Uh and then what the average response time is within the city

[17:32] of Canton, which is just over 7 minutes. So again, uh very very fast for the

[17:37] municipal ambulance. And then the the types of responses that we see in

[17:41] Canton. And please again, if you have any questions as you're looking at this,

[17:45] feel free to interrupt me. I just didn't want to spend too much time like going

[17:49] too deeply into each and every uh one of the cities. This is more so meant to be

[17:53] keep this as kind of like a resource for you guys. So as people ask questions

[17:57] about the volumes in different parts of the county in certain cities and what

[18:01] the response time look like we now have this resource and we can kind of update

[18:05] that at any point. Uh we have Beersford now and so then with Beersburg we see

[18:10] that we have a slight increase in uh the overall average response time and I want

[18:16] to just be clear that that's a direct side effect of the model they use which

[18:20] is just a BLS volunteer service. So they don't have, you know, actual people

[18:25] getting paid 247 to be somewhere to be able to respond right away. So their

[18:29] actual drive times are very very fast to where they're getting to. It's a matter

[18:33] of getting the responders to the ambulance bay to get into the ambulance

[18:37] to be able to actually respond to the call. Uh so that that's really the

[18:40] biggest barrier to that. But in terms of of volunteer service being 11 minutes

[18:46] from time of dispatch to knock on the door, that's that's very good. Like make

[18:50] no mistake, that's a very fast uh volunteer service. So there there's

[18:53] there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

[18:56] And then we have the next two after that are T and Aristot. And again, we can see

[19:02] u they have what's interesting and I don't know if I've ever really put a

[19:06] finger on the why. Uh but their their volume [clears throat]

[19:10] variance tends to be quite high. Uh just in terms of what we kind of see each

[19:15] month in volume. Like you can see on the Harrisburg side uh over the last 12

[19:19] months. I'm looking at the top left hand side of that first page of the

[19:23] Harrisburg one in blue where it says last 12 month volume 223. We can see

[19:28] like the first part of the last 12 months which again remember this is the

[19:32] last 12 months. So it actually starts in June of last year was like anywhere from

[19:36] 18 to like 12 and then you get to like January and February of this year and

[19:40] all a sudden it's 30 like that. That's that's significant variance to see

[19:45] basically three times the volume one month that you did the last month. So

[19:50] that can make it very very difficult to predict what that volume is going to

[19:54] look like when you have that level of variance. There's a whole lot of things

[19:57] that go into it. Uh Canton's volume, I kind of skipped over it a little bit too

[20:02] quickly. There's one thing I did want to touch on Canton, which is that Canton's

[20:06] volume is is the highest. Uh and if you look at the types of calls that they

[20:10] run, you'll notice that at the very very top and in bright green it says transfer

[20:14] in a facility. Uh this is a very common side effect uh of a uh municipality that

[20:20] has a hospital. There just there's a lot of volume uh that comes out of

[20:24] hospitals. Uh and then second to hospitals is going to be assisted living

[20:28] centers, it's going to be nursing homes, it's going to be senior housing. uh they

[20:32] tend to be uh probably four or five times the volume of residential areas

[20:39] and so Lennox has some of those facilities here as well which is a

[20:43] reason for for some of the increases in their volume as well but that was one

[20:47] thing they want to touch on with Canton is that they have 200 transfers in the

[20:51] last two years and uh second most common incident type for them a sick person at

[20:55] 137 so hospital creates some truly significant volume for that T and

[21:02] Harrisburg. So again, their volume is very high variance. For Harrisburg,

[21:07] overall average response time is 12:25. For T, it's 11:25.

[21:12] Again, it's a side effect of not having uh an ambulance obviously directly in

[21:17] the town uh to respond to the call. But again, I I I can't emphasize enough that

[21:23] I I don't want somebody to look at 11 minutes or 12 minutes as a response time

[21:28] and think for any reason that that's like a negative thing. like that's a bad

[21:31] thing. Uh that that that is still very solid in in the grand scheme of things

[21:35] in terms of EMS responses across South Dakota, it's still very fast. It's also

[21:39] worth noting uh that for all of these services that I've marked, I'm sorry,

[21:42] all of the areas that I've marked it where you have the average response

[21:45] time, this is all calls. So this is going to be inclusive of emergent calls

[21:50] where they're responding red lights and sirens and non-emergent calls where

[21:53] they're responding flow of traffic. Uh so when you look at something like this

[21:57] as a general rule of thumb, you can probably remove two minutes for an e

[22:01] call. That's about what we see. Uh in terms of what we kind of see for time

[22:05] savings for the use of red lights and sirens, and you can probably add two

[22:08] minutes uh for a non-emergent call. So as you're kind of looking at these

[22:11] averages, uh you know, 9 minutes for an emergent call, 13 minutes for a

[22:15] non-emergent call is probably a better kind of mindset to have for it.

[22:20] I did put warning in here. They they are relatively low volume, but I wanted to

[22:24] make sure that every uh every city that had EMS volume greater than 100 in my

[22:29] data set at least got a paid so that they could see what their volume was. Uh

[22:33] it again very consistent one one to three calls basically every single month

[22:39] and they're a little bit more what's the politically correct term

[22:43] geographically diverse from the nearest ambulance. So their response times are

[22:46] just a little bit higher too at about 13 minutes. But again, still 13 minutes for

[22:50] for rural South Dakota is is still very very strong. And then the last two pages

[22:55] of the of the actual breakdowns is uh all rural townships. And this would also

[23:02] be inclusive of any small municipal areas that have very very low volume of

[23:07] just just one or two calls per year. But this is going to show you what the

[23:11] responses look like to to rural townships where they have to respond

[23:14] outside of uh any city that they're based out of. Uh we can see what the

[23:18] volume is and again the volume is is very very steady. Uh 400 uh is what it

[23:23] was last year. We kind of again we we we see kind of ups and downs in the volume.

[23:28] I do expect uh that we're probably going to be once again right around that just

[23:32] over 400 calls again uh over the next 12 months. Uh and the average response time

[23:38] has been very very consistent. not going up, not going down, really going back

[23:41] for 5 years uh at uh about 13 minutes and 45 seconds, which is again still

[23:48] long. So very very good for response time for a rural area. Uh when you start

[23:52] talking about rural calls, this is where you start to see like injury accidents

[23:57] and calls like that dominate the incident types. And so with the rural

[24:00] townships, 258 injury accidents is the most common incident type we see across

[24:05] rural Lincoln County. a sick person at 101 is the next most common. So, you're

[24:10] almost two and a half times more likely to run in injury accident than anything

[24:14] else. Uh after you get through the different

[24:17] community breakdowns, then there's a a geographic response area breakdown and

[24:22] just shows you uh both by city, but then also each of the townships, what the EMS

[24:29] volume looks like uh across each of those areas, what it's looked like going

[24:32] back to 2021, and then what the total is for the last five years plus. And then

[24:37] it also tells you at the very end what that represents in terms of a percentage

[24:41] of the whole of the piece of the pie of Lincoln County EMS volume that those

[24:46] places are actually accounting for. So as you kind of guys dive a little bit

[24:50] deeper into kind of any type of equitable funding conversations. This is

[24:53] a really useful thing to come back to uh because it it it's the most objective

[24:58] way that you can really look at it. Uh the last page that's on here is just

[25:03] showing you guys where the services you have uh in Lincoln County. I also

[25:08] included Centerville because they do have some some responses in here as

[25:11] well. So you can kind of see uh based from their homebased station uh

[25:18] where they would be able to get to in x number of minutes. Either 0 to 5, 5 to

[25:22] 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20. So you can kind of see what the coverage looked like

[25:26] across the county. Uh, I'm guessing uh I wasn't around when this was first built

[25:31] many many moons ago. I don't know if anybody was around when they had these

[25:34] initial conversations, but uh there was there was clearly some intelligent

[25:38] design uh to where these services are at because they are they are very very well

[25:42] placed uh for being able to cover Lincoln County. I mean, the entirety of

[25:47] link if there was anything that was over 1959, it would show in white and there's

[25:52] no white at all on the map. So the entirety of the of of Lincoln County is

[25:56] covered in under 1959 from a response time perspective. Uh which is I I if I

[26:03] had to guess maybe 5% of the state could say that. So it's very very good to have

[26:09] this level of coverage. Uh I would do everything in your power to protect uh

[26:15] this level of coverage because if you lose it, you're not going to find it

[26:18] again. So this is it's awesome. I love the fact that you notice how the the

[26:23] green areas, even the lighter green is what I would still consider exceptional

[26:26] coverage includes the entirety of the interstate. So there's no place in

[26:30] Lincoln County on the interstate where you're not 1459 away from an ambulance

[26:33] or closer. Uh which again that I don't even know how many counties across the

[26:38] state of South Dakota would be able to say that. There are places that are

[26:41] maybe 30 or 40 or 50 miles from the nearest provider. So to have the entire

[26:46] interstate coverage and green like that is pretty amazing.

[26:51] Um, I think that's Does anybody have I talk very fast. I apologize for that. I

[26:56] try not to. I try to think about it as I'm talking, but sometimes I just get

[26:58] ahead of myself. I get excited. I like talking about that. I'm just a nerd. But

[27:02] does anybody have any questions about any of this stuff?

[27:07] » When an accident happens on the interstate and there needs to be an

[27:11] ambulance response there, is that assessed to the township in which that

[27:15] interstate lies? So for instance, it goes through Lynn Township

[27:19] Interstate does. >> Exactly. Right. So basically when when I

[27:24] get the data for these calls, I will go through and I will actually figure out

[27:29] to the literal latitude longitude point where the call was at. So a lot of times

[27:33] it'll be like mile marker 71 a quarter of a mile south of I will go on to the

[27:38] map. I'll find the actual mile marker on the interstate. I'll go a quarter mile

[27:42] south and I'll pinpoint it right there. So that way we know when we do

[27:45] geographic summaries like this, it's as accurate as it possibly can be. And so

[27:49] yeah, if it's actually probably all of the interstates going to be real, you're

[27:53] right. It would go, it would flow >> if it's outside of municipality.

[27:57] » Yeah, it'll flow. >> Yep. Exactly right. Yep.

[28:06] » Any other questions from the group?

[28:12] a lot of good information. All right, Sharon.

[28:15] » Okay, so I will be using this um handout.

[28:20] Um my name is Sharon Johnson with um um project solutions depends on the day.

[28:29] Um but [snorts] Justin and I received a contract through the department of

[28:34] health for the services designation grant. Um, and that one's in late 2024.

[28:42] Um, and it will end in November 2026. Um, with that contract, I can provide,

[28:50] uh, Justin and I can provide free technical services to any ambulance

[28:54] services in South Dakota. We have been working with Linux and the city of

[28:58] Lennox since February of 2025, and they have been working really on

[29:03] this model since 2022. So we were really we had a starting

[29:08] place to start and now uh we're going from there. So the value proposition of

[29:15] Linux is going from um a part-time model or a volunteer like a part-time um

[29:23] » hybrid model to um a paid staff model. So, the volunteer EMS model across the

[29:31] United States has reached its limit and cannot ensure a long-term reliable

[29:36] emergency response. Um, if you there's a and Ellen helped me,

[29:42] there's um if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, there is a um it's called

[29:49] Honorable, but um it's EMS and crisis. Um, and it's an amazing uh documentary

[29:57] on uh across the nation how EMS across the United States is in crisis. It's not

[30:03] it wasn't built like police and fire. It was built really kind of differently. In

[30:08] fact, the first um the first uh EMS folks were actually um corn or like morg

[30:16] morgs and corners and hur like a hearse would come in front of your house and

[30:20] pick you up. um or somebody would bring you in the back of the truck or back of

[30:25] the car and take you to uh the ambulance. It wasn't really until the

[30:28] 70s really until uh EMS became so it's pretty late in the game and by that time

[30:36] um it was kind of a hodgepodge of how EMS was put together. Some are paid,

[30:41] some are uh volunteer and um we'll go through that model. But um in South

[30:48] Dakota um for example um there is among this um eight states that have fewer

[30:56] than three ambulances per 10,000 square miles. So again, you're pretty lucky in

[31:01] this county. We're working with counties that have one ambulance. Maybe they

[31:06] don't have any ambulances. Um, paid volunteers are paid $3.25 per hour when

[31:13] on call. An EMT is u paid $15 per hour. A paramedic is paid $23 per hour. Um, so

[31:23] think of that and when you're thinking of what they're doing every day, um,

[31:28] with the vicarious trauma and burnout, um, EMTs and paramedics have a higher

[31:34] rate of divorce, PTSD, and suicide. They work with really dangerous conditions uh

[31:42] including exposure to bodily fluids and physically violent patients and it is

[31:47] backbreaking work. So this is really hard work. So again the value value

[31:53] proposition um is going from a hybrid model to a

[31:57] 24-hour 7-day a week coverage. Um and um the city of Lennox right now is bearing

[32:05] the cost the entire cost to the ambulance service for their jurisdiction

[32:11] and they are uh speaking for Danny the and the city council um it is uh as

[32:19] those costs get greater it's harder and harder to bear for just the citizens of

[32:24] the city of Lennox. So what we looked at were a couple of

[32:29] funding options. We looked at um equitable funding. Oh, do you have to go

[32:37] Okay. Um, equitable funding within the ambulance jurisdiction

[32:42] um and an ambulance district. So, we looked at really three different laws.

[32:46] We looked at what if we just kept the LX ambulance in the city of Lennox where

[32:52] it's at right now. And then we the second option we looked at was what if

[32:58] we built a station uh and expanded the jurisdiction to T. So right now it just

[33:04] comes up to T but it doesn't go into the city limits of T. So um so what if we

[33:11] built and so we could split the difference between Lennox and T. And

[33:16] then the other the third option was what if we had two stations per se one uh

[33:23] where we had manpower here in the city of Lennox and we had manpower uh in the

[33:28] city of T um dedicated manpower. Um then for each one of those scenarios, we

[33:36] looked at what would be what what would it take for to fund it through an

[33:42] ambulance district. And we'll talk about what an ambulance district is in a few

[33:46] minutes. And then what would it be if we equitably split the costs

[33:52] um by population and then the third scenario was what if we split it by call

[33:58] volume. So it's based on what Justin has done.

[34:03] So I know this is very tiny um but the so what we looked at was a the current

[34:12] Lennox jurisdiction and then we also looked at what if the jurisdiction was

[34:17] extended to the city of T and to be clear um for those of you that

[34:23] don't know the city of T and the city of Parisburg do not have their own

[34:26] ambulance services uh they're served um from the north by this uh PCMS are out

[34:33] of the city of Sou Falls and then from the south they're um covered by Canton

[34:38] and by Lennox. So Lennox is an advanced life support

[34:45] service and I think you may have heard Justin say ALS or ELS. So we'll talk

[34:50] about what that is. So um a basic life support is um you know provided by EMTs

[35:00] and it's basically noninvasive life saving care and um if you want to get

[35:06] more into if you have questions regarding that I'm going to turn it over

[35:09] to Alan. Um but you have two ALS services in Lincoln County, Lennox and

[35:16] Canton. And um they are um they have medics or paramedics on uh on staff and

[35:25] they handle more complex and invasive interventions. Um so they can do cardiac

[35:30] monitoring and um interpretation. They can do IV therapy, fluid administration,

[35:37] medication administration, advanced airway management and management of

[35:42] cardiac arrest, severe trauma, stroke, advanced medical emergencies. I've told

[35:48] my kids I said if I get into an accident I hope it's somewhere where there's an

[35:54] ALS ambulance but much of South Dakota is not covered by ALS ambulances

[36:00] most are covered by BLS ambulances and uh I hope that it's somebody from

[36:06] [clears throat] like if I saw Ellen uh and I was in an accident I would I would

[36:11] feel safe. Um so Lincoln County, Lincoln and uh county and Turner County um has

[36:21] um in Lincoln you have um again six ambulance services. We don't list well I

[36:26] guess Sou Falls is in there. Um so sorry five Lennox Canton those are and Sou

[36:32] Falls are your three ALS services. Um Hudson uh is a BLS service. Now they

[36:40] take about um when I about 20 calls a year. They're not very busy, so maybe

[36:47] one or two a month. Um, and then Gearsford is also a basic life support

[36:54] service, and they also take um, uh, they also volunteer model.

[37:00] » Sorry, I I just got to circle back real quick. Now that you said Beersford, it

[37:03] reminded me of something that I forgot to say as we were going through this,

[37:06] and I apologize. Uh, so one thing about Beersford that's worth stating is that

[37:10] they they exist on the county line, right? So only part of Beersford is

[37:14] actually in Lincoln County. So when you're looking at these numbers, the

[37:18] front page where it's all Lincoln County, this is inclusive only of the

[37:23] Lincoln County portion of Beersburg, >> right?

[37:25] » If you go to the Beersburg page, it's all of the city of Beersburg. I didn't

[37:30] want to like put just the 70 or 80 calls that they have in [clears throat] the

[37:34] Lincoln County portion of Beersburg on my Beersburg page because it would make

[37:37] it seem like their volume was much lower than it actually was. So the Lincoln

[37:41] County page is truly all Lincoln County calls only that part of Beers that's in

[37:45] Lincoln County, but the Beersburg one is truly an overview of the city of

[37:49] Beersburg. >> That's the highway. That's is that the

[37:51] county line? >> Yep.

[37:52] » And Centerville is kind of the same way. They have they go into a little bit of

[37:56] of Lincoln County. Yep. >> So in Turner County, the Atlantics is

[38:01] the only ALS service and then Centerville, Hurley, Marian, Parker, and

[38:06] Viber are all the LS services. So you can see on this map um slide 12 um where

[38:14] the services are. Um and um it kind of complements the last page of Justin's

[38:20] handout.

[38:28] So, um I'm going to skip to 15 because um Justin talked about the call

[38:33] locations and where where you're being served. Um so, ambulance service costs

[38:40] are really broken into two areas. The cost of the service or the cost of

[38:45] driving out providing the service and then the second um cost consideration is

[38:51] the cost of readiness. So you have to have a station, you have to have

[38:55] vehicles, you have to have people there uh on ready to be to be called out. Um

[39:01] so first we're going to talk about the ambulance service cost, the cost of

[39:05] service. So that is the cost of responding to an emergency including

[39:09] salaries, advanced life services, equipment, fuel, and supplies. Sometimes

[39:14] supplies can be very very expensive uh to keep somebody alive while

[39:20] um reimbursement from insurance and self-pay uh doesn't even really cover

[39:26] the cost of those um service calls. Um so the next three uh slides on there um

[39:34] the large the the large blue um blue areas right up here those are what is

[39:42] charged to the insurance company. Um and on average um um they get um for like

[39:52] well market advantage they're getting uh the insurance pays about 23% of the

[39:56] bill. uh Medicare uh with Medicaid Medicica uh secondary paid about 29% of

[40:04] the bill and medic um uh for a BLS call for an ALS call which

[40:10] is slightly more expensive um it paid 34% of the call and with

[40:17] Medicaid it pays about 19 or 20% of the call. So you can see that for example um

[40:24] the city of Lennox has their rate sheet on the city website. So if you want to

[40:29] see what every call is you can just go to the uh they're very uh Lennox is very

[40:35] um transparent in their cost. So you can see what cost it it is. Um the cost of

[40:43] readiness um includes again infrastructure, the station, the

[40:47] ambulances, major equipment, personnel, training, insurance, you know,

[40:51] everything it costs to um have a business.

[40:56] So um equitable funding within the current ambulance jurisdiction. Um we

[41:01] were looking at the city of Lennox, the city of Worthing and the city of

[41:05] Chancellor actually wanted to join this jurisdiction as well which I think is

[41:10] really wise uh considering the poet plant uh there and other um uh

[41:17] activities around Chancellor um Lincoln County and Turner County

[41:24] um with uh the city of T decided to uh join the jurisiction or the expanded

[41:31] jurisdiction, they would be included as well.

[41:35] So again, you can't see a lot of this, but essentially

[41:41] um for um it would be the the most um I would say economical cost even with

[41:49] building a new station would be having um an expanded district with the city of

[41:54] T with a station in between. um uh T and Lennox and having we'd have about a six

[42:04] or seven uh minute response time and uh the funding would be uh more equitable

[42:11] um between all of the the jurisdictions. Um,

[42:21] we also, um, and again, if you guys need any of these slides, just let me know

[42:27] and I can send them to you. But we also looked at um what the cost would be if

[42:33] um Lincoln County did not um Turner County um uh has been really um um

[42:42] um they see the value of this epic model

[42:46] and because the um of the you know the I guess the call volumes that you guys

[42:53] have um it's really a great um investment for you and so far it's been

[42:59] they received it very favorably. Um, but we did look at because of the back and

[43:04] forth with Lincoln County, we also looked at what would it look like if

[43:08] Lincoln County did not participate and we looked at some of that the township

[43:14] um pulling in some money and um so hopefully we can work that out um so

[43:20] that I'm not trying to be too political, but it would be much much more fair for

[43:26] Lincoln County to pay that that bill. Um,

[43:32] I will say that, you know, depending on what township you're in, it would be

[43:37] between um,

[43:45] I'm sorry, I can't read this. It's so small.

[43:51] » I might, what I might do is I might open it up on my computer and look at it and

[43:55] then I can go through um, county u, township by township.

[44:00] Um let's go through the ambulance district. Um

[44:05] but the ambulance district is um it's something that there's like 22 ambulance

[44:11] district in the state of South Dakota. It's very popular especially in western

[44:15] South Dakota >> [clears throat]

[44:16] » um where the counties would rather have a tax district than have a um uh which

[44:23] is a mill levy on your property taxes or with your property taxes. um then have

[44:30] um pay into a an ambulance um an EMS uh service. So an ambulance tax district in

[44:38] South Dakota is a special purpose governmental agency um established to

[44:43] fund and manage emergency medical uh services within a defined geographic

[44:48] area. Uh these districts are created uh to ensure that communities particularly

[44:54] in rural or underserved regions have access to timely and reliable uh

[45:00] ambulance services. So um this is guided by codified law 34-11A.

[45:08] Um, and essentially what you can do is you can have a maximum tax tax levy um

[45:15] for operating cost and it's capped at 60 cents per $1,000 of taxable property

[45:20] valuation um for operating cost and 50 cents per

[45:26] uh $1,000 of valuation for capital cost. So capital costs could be like for

[45:30] example an ambulance. And so um here um each ambulance

[45:38] district is um governed by a board of directors elected with residents within

[45:42] the district. So instead of the city of Lennox overseeing the len um or the city

[45:47] of T or any other city it would be governed by a board of um a board of

[45:52] directors. So there would be say for example five board of directors. So you

[45:56] probably have heard about Davidson Hansen County. So, for example, uh in

[46:01] Mitchell was surveying Hansen and Davidson counties and they just couldn't

[46:05] afford to go out to these rural um places anymore. So, they've um passed a

[46:12] ambulance district and then after that, right after that, they um elected a

[46:19] board and then the board now manages that uh ambulance district. And the

[46:25] board decides, which is important, what the mill levy will be, what the budget

[46:29] will be, what the gap between the insurance and the um the operating costs

[46:34] will be. And they can do that really in a couple of ways. They can either do

[46:38] like a flat no levy on properties. So like for example

[46:44] um if if it's 35 cents you know for example for us or for Lennox it could be

[46:51] 35 or 45 cents it would be that would be straight across the board. Now on

[46:57] valuation of a property if I own a house in um say Worththing and it's worth

[47:03] $100,000 the valuation would be probably would be

[47:07] 92% of that. would be $92,000 times um 35 or 40 cents and then that's

[47:15] what I would pay. So it would probably be about $40 a year that I would pay. So

[47:21] um now what what Davidson Hansen County did and what a couple of other counties

[47:26] in South Dakota do is they do a special assessment. So they look at uh they go

[47:32] through the this is a really big job, but they have the auditor download every

[47:36] single property uh in the county or in the ambulance jurisdiction. And then

[47:42] they say, "Okay, these are owner occupied uh houses, these are

[47:48] businesses, these are apartment buildings, this is industry. We are

[47:52] going to put a special assessment on those. We are not going to assess

[47:57] agricultural land." And so that's what they did. Uh in Hansen Davidson County,

[48:05] it ended up to be about $250 uh for every property. Um and it kind of

[48:12] varies a little bit, but essentially that's what it kind of averaged out to

[48:16] be. And so that is kind of like insurance you could say for so say that

[48:22] I own again a property in Worththing and I assess $250 a year. that ensures me

[48:29] that when I call the ambulance, that ambulance will come to my house. So,

[48:34] it's really it's not up to the city of Lennox. It's not up to the Lincoln

[48:38] County Commissioners or the Turner County Commissioners or anybody else.

[48:42] It's up to the people that you vote into that board to determine what that looks

[48:46] like. So um

[48:53] and on the slide 32 that's a current ambulance district that are in the state

[49:00] of South Dakota right now. You can see um for example point which is not too

[49:04] far from here. So there are some that are in this area, Wagner, like Gent um

[49:10] that have very successful um tax districts or ambulance districts that

[49:15] they've been managing for many many years. So um I apologize

[49:22] that the slides are so small. I um and that the you can see the numbers, but

[49:27] what I'm going to do is pull up those numbers right now. knowing if you have

[49:31] any questions regarding your particular township and what scenario you would

[49:35] like to look at. Um I think the safest scenario from now would be the single

[49:42] ambulance right here uh located in um uh in Lennox, you know, um because we don't

[49:49] know what the city of is going to do yet.

[49:53] So on this sheet um there is a single sheet and it has Lincoln County

[50:00] Ambulance Services on it and um what I did is I called all the ambulance

[50:06] services and um essentially interviewed them and we had um you know the call

[50:12] volume is on the the it's the same as what uh Justin provided um but it's by

[50:19] year 23 24 25 And I will have to say to you, even though Beersford and

[50:25] Centerville have not a lot of deficit, it's because they don't have they're not

[50:30] paying they don't have a paid, you know, they are not paying people um to be on

[50:35] their service. It's primarily a volunteer service. They are paying them

[50:40] like when they go on call for example. And they do a ton of fundraising. So

[50:46] they're they're out there really working the streets getting um people to pay um

[50:52] [clears throat] uh through chair um fundraising, rodeos, etc. And so um

[51:00] Hudson didn't get back to me, but again, they're about 20 per year. Um and then

[51:06] you can see the average deficit for with their current model, not with the

[51:10] proposed model, is about 128,000 a year. Sanford can't uh can't inwood ambulance

[51:16] uh which is um one of the few ambulance services that's run out of a hospital in

[51:21] South it's very rare most ambulance services are either run out of the

[51:26] county or by the city um and um Sanford there's very I don't know 12 maybe

[51:34] hospitals ambulances or less than 10 >> that Sanford has

[51:40] » no that any hospital >> sometime

[51:44] not feels like it feels like it's single digits

[51:47] » and you know why would that be? Any guesses?

[51:52] » It's a money losing proposition and the hospitals don't want to have this is

[51:58] really kind of a loss leader for them and [clears throat] um so the reason

[52:02] that they have so many transfers is because they give them to and then they

[52:06] transfer them to their main campus their main campus in Sou Falls. Um, right now

[52:12] they're only staffed 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and then they're on call uh 6:00

[52:17] p.m. to 6:00 a.m. They would also um they've been watching Lennox very very

[52:22] closely. They would like to do what Lennox wants to do which is going to

[52:26] fully staff model. Um and then that would cut down their uh their times as

[52:32] well. Um but that would mean that their deficit would double uh essentially. So

[52:38] it be $460,000 of in deficit. So

[52:44] but there's a little um paragraph on each one of the

[52:50] of the ambulance services if you want to learn more.

[52:54] Okay, that's all I got. Questions for Sharon? She's going to

[52:59] pull up her slides in case someone has a specific question on a number you

[53:03] couldn't see on the paper. questions for Sharon.

[53:09] » Sharon, on these ambulance districts that are located

[53:14] slide 32. >> Yeah.

[53:16] » Is there any uniformity as to the cost? I mean, is there

[53:23] not because they're very different geographically, but I mean, is there

[53:27] like are they 35 ms or they're 25 ms or do they

[53:33] » I think most of them range from 40 to 60 cents.

[53:36] » 40 to 60. >> Yeah.

[53:39] » Do they have any of these have any insulators on there so that they become

[53:46] an independent taxing district? So, so to speak, like a school district almost.

[53:51] » Yeah. >> So, uh are there any insulators on there

[53:54] that limit the put a cap on how much they're able to assess?

[54:02] » Not I don't know the answer to that question.

[54:05] » Well, once the levy is set, >> it can only be raised by the cost of

[54:10] inflation >> 3% of the cost of

[54:13] » CP same as us. Yeah. CPI 2%. Right.

[54:22] » Okay. >> Maybe Marlene's here, right? [laughter]

[54:33] [laughter] >> We agree on this.

[54:40] » Another question. Sharon, how long did it take any of you were working with uh

[54:44] Mitchell the last time? Well, I I wasn't I wouldn't say I was working with them.

[54:49] I was like I was going to their meetings. I was interviewing them. I was

[54:53] watching them closely. Yeah. >> They had the ball they had the ball

[54:57] rolling before we were hired. >> How many of these took a long time to

[55:03] get? I mean, there obviously is a reluctance to set up a new taxing

[55:09] district. There's a lot of, you know, ground that has to be cleared. But I'm

[55:13] just wondering if they had like if they had went through a process like we are

[55:19] for a longevity. I mean, how long did it take? Years, months, or what?

[55:24] » Um, I would say a like a year of preparation.

[55:29] » Yeah. So you have to, you know, the the way that we did it is that we uh and I'm

[55:36] working with Cottington County, Yankington County, Kuster County. So

[55:39] Lincoln is not the only county that we're working with, but we so the the

[55:45] the biggest thing is is you have to determine so you have expenses and then

[55:50] you have revenue. So at least you know you'd have revenue coming in unlike say

[55:56] you know other city or county functions. So you have revenue coming in. So you

[56:01] have to determine what that gap is. Once you know what that gap is then you back

[56:07] calculate based on your tax value or your property tax valuation how much

[56:13] your levy would be or how much a special assessment would be to get there. So for

[56:18] Hansen Davidson County, that gap was $700,000.

[56:24] And so they had to back calculate. That's how they came up with $250

[56:28] special assessment is because when they looked at all their properties, they had

[56:33] to take $700,000, divide it by their, you know, the

[56:39] properties that would qualify, and it came up to $250.

[56:43] It's essentially math, >> you know.

[56:47] » Is is that how you've got calculated? So, you know, there's two different

[56:51] models we're talking about. Yeah. >> One is would be the special taxing

[56:54] district. >> Yeah.

[56:55] » The other is the shared resource model. >> Yeah.

[56:58] » Based on call volume, based on population.

[57:01] » So, is that how you came up with the numbers? Yes. For for the for the shared

[57:06] resource? >> You got it.

[57:08] » Okay. So one of the questions that for example with um

[57:14] so for example if we were just to keep the station here and we're and Lennox

[57:20] was not to serve te um it would be the the gap that gap

[57:26] would be about $400,000. If you were to put a station in between

[57:34] T and Lennox, that gap would be about 475,000

[57:39] even when you put in a new model. Um, and the reason why is if we serve T,

[57:45] then that lowers the it lowers the cost for, you know, everybody. and you have,

[57:51] you know, I baked in uh the revenue based on the fish report of what you

[57:58] guys would bring in and as far as insurance and then if you had two models

[58:03] or two like bases, one in Linux and one of T, it would be about $850,000.

[58:11] And that is very low because that just really accounts for the manpower that

[58:18] Tyson and I calculated. It does not account for putting up a new garage or

[58:23] any other infrastructure like that.

[58:30] So, great question.

[58:37] Uh Jim, I know that so we we met what was it about a month ago now and and so

[58:44] it it seems like there had been a bit of a shift away from the the taxing

[58:49] district model. I'm not saying that that is totally off the table. Uh but the

[58:54] shared resource model I think is something that the elected officials and

[58:58] in in te have have grown in interest and fondness towards looking deeper into. Um

[59:05] and I think everyone that's in this room, if it's everyone participating and

[59:11] sharing some of those costs based on call volumes, it's Lincoln County, it's

[59:15] the townships, it's Lennox, it's Worthing, it's Chancellor, everyone

[59:20] sharing those equally, I think, potentially gets us there. Now,

[59:25] that for, you know, our jurisdiction and everyone's jurisdictions means there's

[59:29] not going to be a source of revenue with a new taxing district we bring. we'd

[59:34] have to find it within our own current budgets to help to have to find fund

[59:39] this somehow. So, I think we all need to be looking at our budgets to see if it's

[59:44] something that we have the capacity and capabilities of of of helping to fund.

[59:51] And I would say, you know, the the models that that we've run so far, I'm

[59:57] sure are not the only models that can be run. Like there there may be other

[1:00:01] options out there. you know, you as a a township or county may look at your uh

[1:00:07] your share of this under a certain model and say, "Well, that's just not feasible

[1:00:11] for us. We don't have that." Well, let's go back and figure out what is, right?

[1:00:16] Let's look at other other possibilities to figure that out.

[1:00:20] » If it's a shared resource situation, who's who's governing that or who's

[1:00:27] making those decisions? the city of Lennox, the the council t, you know,

[1:00:33] who's who's dishing that out to each township or county then at that point.

[1:00:40] » Yeah, there there are benefits and risks to

[1:00:45] all the options. Uh you could have, you know, its own organization, but then you

[1:00:49] you lose certain employment benefits for your staff, like you won't be able to

[1:00:53] offer SDRs to your employees and uh you may be so small that health a realistic

[1:00:59] possibility and I don't know that's the health will be available then or not. Um

[1:01:04] so I I think whatever whatever solution is

[1:01:11] is brought to the table probably needs to include a governance structure where

[1:01:15] it's not one entity controlling it, >> right,

[1:01:18] » but one is the fiscal agent and the HR and so on and so forth. And we're we're

[1:01:22] happy to continue in that role. I I think um but that that that's not to say

[1:01:28] that the decisions have to be made just in this room. I I I think it's

[1:01:33] preferable that there's a joint decision-m process as it goes forward

[1:01:36] because you you can't have in my mind can't have a joint funding model without

[1:01:40] having a joint governance model. >> Right. Right.

[1:01:48] » I'm Nate. Sorry, I came in later. Chair, have they ever had a just since

[1:01:54] we're tossing out every idea, have we ever had a hybrid where we've taken a um

[1:02:02] joint funding and a small uh taxing thing combo?

[1:02:07] » Um if I understand Kuster's so Kuster County is split in

[1:02:13] half. So everything west of the park, the Kuster State Park is a tax district.

[1:02:20] everything east is not it's just kind of a hodge podge. So right now bas their

[1:02:28] taxing their ambulance district is very old and they have not ever raise the

[1:02:33] rates and so it pays for about I believe about a third of their operating costs.

[1:02:39] So the county does pitch in some of it. I don't think the city of Kuster um

[1:02:46] helps but the county does.

[1:02:56] So my question so county could have a a a district because we are so minute

[1:03:02] other than chancellor to fund to have all of our what I want to say

[1:03:09] our residents pay for a minor portion of so you could turn a county to a

[1:03:14] ambulance district pay it to Linux and then link how long you had there.

[1:03:20] They're just two different.

[1:03:23] » You're good. >> Yeah. Just you you'd collect it

[1:03:28] » and then [clears throat] probably have an operating agreement with the

[1:03:31] ambulance service. >> Yeah. Then send it forward to

[1:03:36] » But I can almost guarantee you that if you're just going to section off one

[1:03:40] part of Turner County, you got five other services, four other services in

[1:03:44] the county that that >> five may want a piece of that pie, too.

[1:03:48] I agree. >> So,

[1:03:51] » but we're talking about >> and [clears throat] so I can't say that

[1:03:56] we we're going to tax Parker to give Lennox money for an ambulance because

[1:04:03] Parker has their own. So, >> I mean, yeah, we might have five

[1:04:07] ambulance districts down the road, but right now we're talking about

[1:04:13] Ellen is saying 45 miles of turnover. Um

[1:04:19] the turn full turn county or just Lennox >> Lennox portion I believe is 45 miles

[1:04:24] » square miles and probably if you look at that 45 miles majority other than

[1:04:30] Chancellor the population is mining probably

[1:04:35] » but I will say too that Turner County uses likes for their ALS intercepts

[1:04:40] also. Well, I'm not just I'm not I'm not saying that we wouldn't, but I'm I'm

[1:04:44] just wondering. I mean, I don't feel it's fair for me to charge Parker and

[1:04:49] Marian to subsidize Lennox. >> I mean, so we could do an annual

[1:04:55] district for the area that Lennox covers.

[1:05:00] » One one thing to keep in mind, uh I'm I'm free, so don't forget that I'm free

[1:05:05] to work with. So if we want to geographically pinpoint every single

[1:05:09] call that you have and and do the equitable funding of this is exactly

[1:05:13] where the calls are at like there's nothing more objective than that, right?

[1:05:16] Like you remove the emotion from it by saying 8% of the calls is in that is in

[1:05:21] that district. So 8% of the funding goes that direction. So I I would love to

[1:05:25] work with Turner County. You guys will >> we are willing to work.

[1:05:29] » That would be awesome. And we're not talking a ton of money for Turner

[1:05:33] County. It's like 20 to $45,000. So yeah. And so that at that point you

[1:05:40] would think is it worth doing a tax district or an ambulance district just

[1:05:44] for that stretch. Um so yeah. >> Well, currently you have Lennox has a

[1:05:49] jurisdiction to park county. Correct. So essentially, if we

[1:05:55] left that the same, Parker wouldn't be getting taxed because they're not

[1:05:59] they're not in that district. >> But county itself would say we're going

[1:06:03] to fund $50,000 to Lennox. I'm going to have to spread

[1:06:08] that across everybody in county. >> I can't I can't just say I'm doing a

[1:06:13] mill levy for Chancellor. I mean unless we do a special assessment or we or we

[1:06:18] just do a tax I can't say >> it have to be a special assessment for

[1:06:23] the ones in the jurisdiction special

[1:06:39] because everybody's paying that money and then all of a sudden Parker's coming

[1:06:42] in and then they're going to get charged for Parker Right.

[1:06:47] Yeah. That could be a special in that jurisdiction.

[1:06:51] » Yes. >> So I mean

[1:06:54] » in which they have a pretty good map >> might not be residential. It could be

[1:07:00] just farmland. >> Yeah.

[1:07:04] » You have to remember that if you're going to do farmland, you're taxing

[1:07:08] people who live country

[1:07:10] » and that's it. I mean, >> you're not just farming people that live

[1:07:14] here. >> We're talking Yes.

[1:07:16] » We're talking land owners that live all over.

[1:07:18] » Yeah. So, whether or not you attack a land owner

[1:07:23] that you're never going to >> service,

[1:07:29] Massachusetts, and wherever, >> right?

[1:07:32] » It have to be a special testament to the res.

[1:07:37] Yes. >> Yes.

[1:07:38] » That are in the dwellings there. That's true.

[1:07:41] » Marlene, >> you're hiding.

[1:07:45] [laughter]

[1:07:48] » I heard you say that you thought that special assessment was the best route to

[1:07:52] go. >> Yeah. Just don't tell the auditor. I

[1:07:55] said that. >> [laughter]

[1:07:58] » my she >> I think there I honestly from the from

[1:08:05] the con uh conversations that we've had there's always a

[1:08:12] reluctance to have a separate board set up and set a levy independent of

[1:08:19] anybody. I mean there that's just there there I think there is maybe a fear

[1:08:24] factor along but a special assessment to me actually sounds sounds better. I mean

[1:08:32] it's fair and equitable across the board but I'm curious as to the other

[1:08:36] townships for you guys. What are your thoughts? I mean this isn't a free lunch

[1:08:42] to sit back there in the back pew, you know.

[1:08:46] So I I'm curious what what's what's your thoughts?

[1:08:50] » Well, I think her and I just discussed that for the Turner County aspect of it.

[1:08:55] It would have to be a special assessment to the residents in that jurisdiction. I

[1:09:00] think that's the only way to >> Well, you can't do a taxing, but I'm

[1:09:03] curious with the rest of it. I think I think for me the biggest thing

[1:09:09] that if it was based on if you took out that a land where people parcels where

[1:09:15] nobody lived and you're looking at residences

[1:09:18] and maybe businesses too um because you think of a place like like a a grain

[1:09:24] elevator or a manufacturing facility the the concentration of people is much

[1:09:30] higher there and the likelihood of an injury there is much higher

[1:09:34] » um than like a daycare or something I don't know Um,

[1:09:38] but that that when you take the the egg land out

[1:09:42] looking at residences, I think that that's a that's a reasonable approach.

[1:09:48] » So bare land bare egg land would just be exempt because there's nobody living

[1:09:54] there and nobody that going to get hurt. I mean technically won't get hurt there.

[1:10:00] So you just kind of leave it with the residences and the businesses that are

[1:10:05] in the counties

[1:10:12] that you're paying. So depending on >> I could be renting your land and you

[1:10:17] live in Philadelphia and you're not paying taxes and I rented the land. I'm

[1:10:22] not paying so and I get hurt on that land. I'm not paying. I mean, well,

[1:10:27] you're going to bill me, though, because I got picked up in the bill.

[1:10:31] » I I assume you could do the special assessment based on the

[1:10:37] residential or commercial value only and exempt

[1:10:41] any value because those are known values. They're separated values in the

[1:10:45] assessment. >> So,

[1:10:49] the owner occupied and the commercial. Isn't that what you indicated they did?

[1:10:53] there was the different the different uh classifications,

[1:10:59] » right? So what I so I went to the director of for county and for turn

[1:11:05] county and parcel by parcel they broke down what was owner occupied and what

[1:11:11] was egg. And so based on the calculations that I made for this, I

[1:11:18] didn't do a special assessment because I I mean, you know, I just I didn't want

[1:11:24] to make the d the directors of equalization were already being really

[1:11:28] nice to me. If I would have asked them to do that, they would have really

[1:11:31] needed me. And so um so what I did is I I just took their um so the egg land is

[1:11:38] valued at the valuation is 85% in Turner County and in Lincoln County.

[1:11:45] So if I have $100,000 worth of egg, it would be assessed at $85,000

[1:11:51] and then times the no levy. So yeah, so that's how I calculated it tax.

[1:11:59] » Correct. That's how I did it with no levy calculation.

[1:12:04] » Yeah. >> So I I want another question.

[1:12:08] » Sure. [clears throat] So, if if we did this shared

[1:12:12] technically, okay, how how do we determine what it's going

[1:12:18] to cost a an average homeowner in rural Lincoln County? I mean, we

[1:12:27] talked about 400,000, you know, whether we were going to have

[1:12:31] » A or B or whatever, but can we kind of give a perspective as to what that

[1:12:36] really cost? So what you what the map that you would have to do. Yeah.

[1:12:41] » Is you'd have to So we have boundaries around the Lennox ambulance

[1:12:46] jurisdiction. [clears throat] So there's like a map and the Lincoln

[1:12:50] and and Turner County auditors have that. What they would have to do is they

[1:12:54] would have to take each one of those councils and provide to us what is

[1:13:01] » I'll be shot in the morning. >> Exactly. [laughter]

[1:13:04] » Exactly. I mean, it's an exercise that once you do it, it's kind of I mean,

[1:13:09] it's easy to do. It's just a little bit of work on their end to do.

[1:13:13] » Yeah, you're leaving anyway. So, Sherry, [laughter]

[1:13:19] » that right time now with the governor's

[1:13:24] election coming up, [laughter]

[1:13:27] » but the shared use model based on call up. So each jurisdiction would be

[1:13:34] basically build annually based on call volume like a predicted you've got

[1:13:40] predictions of future years. So you do that based on next year's budget.

[1:13:46] » So then everyone would receive that information in advance. Correct.

[1:13:51] » Well, are you talking I think >> I'm talking the share I'm talking the

[1:13:54] shared resources model that would be based on call.

[1:13:58] » Okay. Yes. So, you know, we don't there's no funding sources, right? So,

[1:14:03] we're not assessing. >> Everyone is just digging in the couch

[1:14:07] cushions to figure out how to keep EMS going.

[1:14:10] » Correct. >> Um and and uh because I I think just the

[1:14:16] realities I mean I I don't know where everyone sits in the room, but the

[1:14:19] realities of passing a a taxing jurisdiction

[1:14:24] might be a little bit difficult in today's current climate. So like tonight

[1:14:29] I think we like I think a conversation about the shared resource model is is

[1:14:34] important if this is going to be a reality.

[1:14:38] Um my question on that is so you we have the municipalities

[1:14:45] we know what our call volume is. We know what that you you have numbers on what

[1:14:50] that annual cost would look like for tea for Harrisburg who who would

[1:14:55] participate, right? Not for Harrisburg, but for tea and Worththing and um so

[1:15:01] then there's the the township areas that outlying areas outside of the the

[1:15:06] municipalities. Those are both there's two taxing jurisdictions. There's the

[1:15:10] township and the county. How does that get divided out uh equitably between the

[1:15:17] township and the county in the shared resource model?

[1:15:20] » In the shared resource model right now there's we looked at it by city of

[1:15:26] Lennox, city of Worvin, city of Chancellor and then at T wanted to join

[1:15:31] we included T and expanded the jurisdiction north. Then we looked at

[1:15:37] Lincoln County and Turner County. So, for example, if we were to do the

[1:15:43] central station, the city of Lennox would um on a call volume

[1:15:51] um would contribute $162,000 a year. The city of Riving would

[1:15:56] contribute 18,000. Uh the city of Lennox would contribute 6,000. The city of Was

[1:16:04] that it's in there, but it's so small that you can't see it. Sorry. 175,000.

[1:16:10] Um, Lincoln County would contribute about

[1:16:14] 98,000. Turner County 16,000 uh for a total of about 475,000.

[1:16:22] » How much is Chancellor? >> Chancellor would be um 6,000.

[1:16:28] We also looked at what if what if McMount decided not to participate?

[1:16:35] What would that look like? And would we ask if we had to ask the Lincoln County

[1:16:42] townships if they and if we had to do a central

[1:16:47] location, Delaware would be 5,000. Grant would be almost 12,000. Lynn would be um

[1:16:57] about 9,000. Current period would be 23,000.

[1:17:02] Uh Lavali would be uh about 20,000. and delri would be um about 57,000.

[1:17:11] » So that yeah I can hear that. >> So so that

[1:17:16] so then so Lincoln County is contributing a portion and then that

[1:17:20] would just be township >> that's so that was my question is how

[1:17:24] that gets split up. So if in a Lincoln County model, the township, the Lincoln

[1:17:31] County would uh cover the cost of the rural rule. The municipalities would pay

[1:17:37] their share within city lines >> and Lincoln County and Turner County

[1:17:43] would pay for the rural. Um >> I understand.

[1:17:47] » Does that make sense? >> Do you think that fees are so much

[1:17:50] higher because of the fact that we are covering a lot of the industry?

[1:17:58] which I mean we have noticed has driven up a lot of our stuff before like even

[1:18:04] our numbers when we've been here

[1:18:08] and yeah

[1:18:13] » so I guess for the I have a question where's T

[1:18:17] » I you know I I don't think I have many more answers to the questions than what

[1:18:22] we've had in the past um you We're

[1:18:27] » Justin, I can help with that. >> Okay, you bailing me out. [laughter]

[1:18:33] » All right, so this is Ly Young from about 200 miles away listening in. So,

[1:18:36] thanks everyone for coming tonight. Um, where's the city of T at? Um, city of T

[1:18:42] is looking and saying, "Hey, um, we're continuing to look at this and saying

[1:18:48] what's best. Is it best to help our neighbors out? Is it best to do this

[1:18:52] long term? Is it best to do this short term? Um, so we're looking at that.

[1:18:57] We're also looking at what the state's doing. You know, they've got a ambulance

[1:19:01] funding task force coming out in the next couple months. Um, I'm interested

[1:19:07] in what our commissioners are doing, especially our commissioners elect and

[1:19:11] our current commissioner outgoing because this has been a constant

[1:19:15] discussion for years [clears throat] and the commissioners have always run on

[1:19:20] public safety and supporting public safety. Well, this is public safety and

[1:19:26] your uh commissioners in Mcook County pay about $400,000 to support rural

[1:19:31] ambulance. Minihaha County pays $400,000.

[1:19:35] Many t or uh counties support rural EMS and

[1:19:40] what we have from Lincoln County is zero. So, um supporting public safety

[1:19:46] needs to be a priority. I think that's what all of our citizens want. As far as

[1:19:50] the city of T um if we go into a funding model, whether it's equitable or whether

[1:19:55] it's um the by population, we still have great interest in that. um in discussion

[1:20:03] with the rest of you know our uh city houses and our mayor. Uh but we want

[1:20:08] everyone buy in. And number two is is um we want to make sure

[1:20:15] that we're still mobile. I mean this will whatever we do today will not solve

[1:20:20] the problem in five or seven years because of the way Lincoln County grows.

[1:20:24] So this group and I applaud Allen and uh Nate for getting the townships in their

[1:20:29] room and all that other stuff. I know I know they made those calls. We need to

[1:20:33] continue this discussion. Um but we're you know we see the value of this. We

[1:20:38] actually asked for a quote from PCMS to do it for 100 or you know put a truck

[1:20:44] down in tea and they've not done it. Um they haven't provided us a quote. Um our

[1:20:50] Fitch study said we could provide EMS to our town for $875,000.

[1:20:56] Um so how does that work? How does response times work? How do a lot of

[1:21:01] other stuff work? We want to keep the conversation going, but as I look at it

[1:21:05] as a city councelor, seeing that 27% of the calls are in the rural area and

[1:21:09] Lincoln County comes up with zero, um I don't think that's right. I don't think

[1:21:13] the taxpayers want that, right? Or want that to be the contribution. Um so where

[1:21:18] where we're at, we're still in the ball game. $152,000

[1:21:23] and $190,000 we can come up with in the budget process, but we're not going to

[1:21:28] ask our citizens to put more property tax on themselves through a levy or a

[1:21:34] special assessment. I'm very confident of that. So, um, our contribution would

[1:21:41] come out of general fund dollars and making priorities um, as we all do with

[1:21:47] city councilors and and township and county government. So, um, I hope that's

[1:21:52] a little bit of where we're at, but, um, like I said, I don't think we're

[1:21:55] interested in the taxi model. We haven't been for a long time, and we're looking

[1:22:00] for the county to step up and, uh, show some involvement in this like they do

[1:22:05] other areas of public safety. >> Thanks, Lyn. [clears throat]

[1:22:15] You want me to respond to that? [laughter]

[1:22:18] Lyn, I you know, I mean, it isn't the fact that we're we're wrestling with an

[1:22:22] $8 million deficit right now. So, it isn't that Lincoln County is flushed

[1:22:27] with cash. Uh I don't know that uh I don't I think that we as a county

[1:22:34] probably have a responsibility to be a partner, but just to how much of a

[1:22:39] partner that could be or that would be or that will take place, I can't say.

[1:22:46] But if it if everybody from townships on down, everybody, you know, where where

[1:22:52] townships, where does your money come from? You come from a levy that you you

[1:22:56] put down every year to cover your costs for road maintenance, gravel, and

[1:23:02] culverts and things like that. And uh is it safe to say that a township could

[1:23:08] levy a small portion for ambulance coverage and then have individual uh

[1:23:14] land our homeowners pay some? So if you spread this over the entire spectrum

[1:23:20] where from the cities, the counties, the townships, and the residents,

[1:23:25] I I don't think it would be too large an impact because the larger base that you

[1:23:30] can spread that over, the better you're off, you know, and you know, so I I

[1:23:36] can't really speak for the county. I'm only 20% of a of a decision. Uh we have

[1:23:41] two uh incoming uh in very intelligent young.

[1:23:48] You got that didn't you? >> Anyway,

[1:23:51] [laughter] >> no I think I think uh you know they can

[1:23:56] appreciate you know the decisions and look at our reality as well. So,

[1:24:02] » so >> is it safe to say is it safe to say

[1:24:05] tonight if we were to raise our hands that if everybody was at the table

[1:24:11] paying a share for ambulance service throughout the county that that would be

[1:24:18] agreeable? Would that be would that be safe to say without without a taxing

[1:24:24] district without all of that kind of stuff?

[1:24:28] because I think we should work from that from that standpoint. Or is there anyone

[1:24:32] that's strongly opposed to that? Yeah, >> I would completely agree. I think the

[1:24:37] more people that pitch in, the better it'll be cuz I know like one of our

[1:24:40] numbers for worthy is over $40,000. We can't afford that. We have a small tax

[1:24:43] base. We cannot afford that. So, if everybody can pitch in and we can get it

[1:24:48] down below that, we'll absolutely be in.

[1:24:55] » You spread the paint. you spread it all over and and and then you then you have

[1:24:59] a safety issue covered. So >> yeah, and I can't blame what Lennox's

[1:25:05] position is. >> They are serving these areas outside of

[1:25:08] their m municipality and they are, you know, they're they're their local

[1:25:12] taxpayers are are basically funding those services outside. And you're

[1:25:16] seeing the same thing. Rapid City just sent out notices to everyone that

[1:25:20] they're that they cover outside of the city of Rapid and send everybody a bill

[1:25:23] and said if you want EMS service next year, you're going to have to pay us.

[1:25:29] City of Oxelder, it's $400,000 a year. Uh, you know, Mitchell just went through

[1:25:34] this. Watertown now has has taken this same position. So, Lennox isn't the only

[1:25:39] one that's kind of in that in this boat of

[1:25:42] saying, "Hey, we're going to stop funding outside of our city limits."

[1:25:46] Sharon, is it safe to say that I have a good friend the commissioners down in

[1:25:51] Yankton County where they are Yankton County runs the ambulance service and

[1:25:56] they are uh in deep trouble financially? Uh

[1:26:00] » I would not say that. >> Well, Clish tells me this all the time.

[1:26:05] » So, are they trying >> are they trying to spread this out over

[1:26:08] a larger share? Are they trying to reduce their uh amount of their

[1:26:17] uh support and spread that out over a larger base?

[1:26:23] » Well, Yankton is I mean everybody's different, right?

[1:26:27] » So, Yankton um their deficit between their revenue

[1:26:33] » and they have an amazing billing system. They have two builders in house and

[1:26:38] they're pickles and they only have a $400,000 deficit. They have $1.5 million

[1:26:46] in operating expenses and $1.1 million of revenue coming in through insurance.

[1:26:52] It's very good. One of it's the best in the state. And so they the county has to

[1:26:58] come up with that $400,000. But they've actually have some their

[1:27:04] billing has actually crept up to almost $1.3 million now. So now um I talked to

[1:27:12] Dan Commissioner Commission last week and um we tried to talk to the city of

[1:27:19] Gangen and they do not want to participate and so now they're looking

[1:27:24] at doing a a tax district or an ambulance district in the Yangen.

[1:27:29] the county or >> the county

[1:27:32] » excluding the city. >> Uh no, including the city, the whole

[1:27:36] county. There is only one ambulance There's only one ambulance service in

[1:27:40] Yankton and it's Yankton County. They serve the entire county and they go into

[1:27:47] what's I don't know what county I in, but they serve.

[1:27:53] » Yes, we're right at the corner. It's a mess. We're trying to geographically put

[1:27:57] them >> in the right spot.

[1:27:59] » Yeah. >> Throw rockets in a different county.

[1:28:02] » So Irene wants to be in that because again they're they're amazing ALS

[1:28:08] service. They have air support down there. They have Yankton

[1:28:14] Bar hospitals down there. So yeah. So anyway, their situation is much

[1:28:20] different and I if Commissioner Clemish is

[1:28:25] listening to this, I'm sorry, but he's got it better than he thinks he does.

[1:28:33] Marlene, would you hazard a guess how long it would take the auditor's office

[1:28:39] to do that uh necessary

[1:28:45] function to get all that assess or that parcels out or whatever they have to do?

[1:28:51] » Well, that would be the assessor's office.

[1:28:53] » Yeah. Well, I would assume that's probably

[1:28:57] going to take a little bit of time, >> but it wouldn't be

[1:29:01] » very responsive to any >> Yeah, but it wouldn't be in that

[1:29:04] wouldn't be all >> No, because it's all done by class

[1:29:06] codes. So, I mean, it's all it's all in their year in class codes.

[1:29:11] » Okay.

[1:29:14] So would it be safe to say that we we'd get all that was done from Lincoln

[1:29:19] County and and the townships would have theirs and so we could come up with some

[1:29:26] numbers of what it would cost? >> Yeah.

[1:29:29] » I mean that's what I'd like to see

[1:29:34] » for all of Lincoln County or just this Linux district. [clears throat]

[1:29:39] » All the affected townships that are going to get to service. Yeah.

[1:29:45] So it wouldn't be all the county, it would be just those townships that you

[1:29:50] mentioned.

[1:29:56] So Commissioner Schmidt, if I could just add in here, um, Lincoln County's

[1:30:01] already seen its budget. The rest of us are working on our budget. If you look

[1:30:05] at the the information that you know has been provided by the consultants, the

[1:30:10] let's just go adding in the city of T um with the current funding that she has

[1:30:16] with Lennox 141,000 T 152 and and so on. Lincoln County is in its budget process.

[1:30:25] If you allow this group to come forward and we've been there a couple times,

[1:30:29] I've been there two dozen, you know, two or three times, probably more than that.

[1:30:34] um and asked for a budget from the county and start out at whatever number.

[1:30:40] Pick a number 50,00075,000 that's Lincoln County's contribution.

[1:30:46] Then the rest of the form the rest of the numbers come on down and then it

[1:30:52] gets easier for Lynn Township potentially and the valley

[1:30:57] and all those other people to be there and the numbers get adjusted that way.

[1:31:01] That's the way it works in Minhaha County. Um that's the way it works in

[1:31:06] some of these other places is um put in a number 75,000 and then we can still

[1:31:12] adjust some of these other numbers down and we'll see. You guys are the first

[1:31:17] ones in the budget line. If it doesn't get in your budget, then we'll know what

[1:31:20] the rest of us need to come up with numbers,

[1:31:25] need to come up with funds. Well, Lynn, in answer to your question,

[1:31:30] I can certainly uh propose that as we are, we have a budget that has been set.

[1:31:37] I mean, on what our expenditures and what our revenue is going to be, it

[1:31:42] would be another line item. So, we would have to take that in front

[1:31:47] of the commission. We'd have to vote on on that. I don't know if we have a set

[1:31:52] sum that we would have. Uh uh it would first just be the idea that would we

[1:31:58] participate? Would we get the three votes to participate? You know, that's a

[1:32:03] jump ball as well. But I certainly lend in answer to your question and would

[1:32:08] have the townships there. Uh we got to get this thing going. We we kicking this

[1:32:13] thing down for so darn long. We got to get some answers here. So, we might as

[1:32:19] well put that on the agenda. And uh it's been nice knowing you all

[1:32:25] [laughter]

[1:32:28] and and and we'll call the question and and and it's very important for you

[1:32:34] townships to be there >> because this is serious business. I

[1:32:38] mean, we're not talking just money here. You know, we can we can talk money all

[1:32:43] we want, but you know, it's kind of nice to be able to call when you have an

[1:32:47] emergency and have somebody come and take care of it. And it's a it's a life

[1:32:51] and death issue in some cases. So, uh, we'll put it on the budget, Lynn, and

[1:32:57] we'll see how far it goes. >> And I'll go down,

[1:33:00] » Commissioner. >> I'll go down.

[1:33:02] » I apprec I appreciate that. I'll go down tomorrow and uh we will uh talk to uh

[1:33:11] uh Sherry and I'll talk with them and we'll get it on the agenda sometime as

[1:33:16] soon as we can so we get this uh some numbers and we get this decision made.

[1:33:21] Okay. >> So your your budget I appreciate that

[1:33:24] » your first budget hearing is September 1st

[1:33:27] » though the work has already started. The first [snorts]

[1:33:30] » the first public hearing is September 1st if I remember right.

[1:33:32] » Yeah. Anybody looking at budget here?

[1:33:37] » We'll be talking next every week. >> We're going to be kicking.

[1:33:43] » We have work on the 30th. >> Work session. Yeah, we start a work

[1:33:47] session on the 30th and then publish the provisional by July 30th and then your

[1:33:52] first hearing September first Tuesday in September.

[1:33:57] » We'll be kicking this thing around. Does anybody here think that this is not

[1:34:02] doable by September to find some kind of solution on paper?

[1:34:06] » Well, keep in mind that townships, we've already had our budget for the year.

[1:34:10] » And I'm understand

[1:34:18] I I don't think anybody in here is all that concerned about, you know,

[1:34:22] [clears throat] when when the money would come into this

[1:34:25] group. So if that means that it's a different budget year for one than the

[1:34:29] other then then we'll work that out. >> Can you

[1:34:37] » can I can I ask a question? So my board members when I came here they said they

[1:34:45] wanted a um a taxing district. >> Um

[1:34:52] so if Turner County wants a taxing district and you going to

[1:34:58] chip in? I mean, how what is how does that affect this?

[1:35:02] » My question is too, my second question, could I have maybe two or you to come

[1:35:08] and visit with my board because I'm I can visit with them all I want to

[1:35:14] » and there's >> they still consider me an auditor. So,

[1:35:19] [laughter] commissioner,

[1:35:21] » there's a there's a piece of paper going around asking for contact information. I

[1:35:26] think we're going to plan on scheduling follow-up visits with each jurisdiction

[1:35:29] just to to go through specific numbers, options, plans, what what's on the table

[1:35:35] kind of stuff. >> And I I'll bring this to them,

[1:35:37] » okay? >> What our share would be, what chance of

[1:35:39] share would be. But

[1:35:47] » yeah, you could do both. I you do a tax turner.

[1:35:50] » Any anybody can pass a special assessment. Anybody could do an

[1:35:54] ambulance district. I suppose anybody could could come up with revenue any

[1:35:58] number of ways. And I I guess that important to the group as a whole how

[1:36:04] that happens. >> Do you have to pass or do a petition to

[1:36:07] do the ambulance? Take it to a vote. >> You can do just a resolution. the board

[1:36:12] can just do a resolution that >> has

[1:36:19] Sharon, would you be available again to come and

[1:36:23] kind of explain the concept

[1:36:28] you know I mean it's pretty simple but it you know we got some public that

[1:36:33] would be there and we get certainly get a lot of press these days so uh u I

[1:36:41] think it would be good to have that kind of explain one more time, you know.

[1:36:50] » And Lyn, I'm sure you're going to be there.

[1:36:55] » Just a second. >> Yeah. I mean, obviously, um, I'm

[1:37:01] interested in the city of Lax, I mean, be neither. I think it's our

[1:37:04] responsibility as elected officials to come and continue this discussion. And

[1:37:09] as Commissioner uh Schmidt said, let's get a three uh to two or a four to one

[1:37:15] or hopefully a five to zero because um we can all agree that public trans is

[1:37:21] important and it's important for our jurisdictions, but it's also important

[1:37:25] for the county. So, we need to know how the county supports it. Um, and if they

[1:37:31] support it financially and the financial model is the thing that's going to get

[1:37:35] us into the next area, not just talking about it. Um, and now I sound like it's

[1:37:40] city councelor from Lennox, but we got to move some way one shape or the other

[1:37:44] because T needs to make decisions, too. And this is one thing that we need to

[1:37:50] know is what's Lincoln County going to come to the table with? Is it just

[1:37:53] support or is it support with finances? >> Yeah,

[1:38:01] feel like you were on the bubble. >> I can right now. [laughter]

[1:38:07] » So, with that, we had we had some next steps. I think we have an understanding

[1:38:10] what some of the next steps are. Is there anything we need to clear up for

[1:38:14] anybody else for the next steps? I >> I know I walked in a little bit late

[1:38:18] from another meeting. Did we [clears throat] talk through an MOU at

[1:38:21] all? memorandum of understanding. >> No, we did not.

[1:38:24] » Um, and that >> it's one of your handouts, too.

[1:38:28] » Yeah. And it's it's something that

[1:38:32] I would view as somewhat optional, but at some point we need to know somewhat

[1:38:37] formally who who's in with this idea and who's not so that we can start putting

[1:38:42] actual numbers, firm numbers down on paper because if if one township or one

[1:38:47] county is out or one city is in or out, it it changes the entire formula. Uh,

[1:38:52] and so you know what I'm looking at is if if if Lincoln County and I'm guessing

[1:38:57] Turner is on the same timet for budgeting. Um,

[1:39:02] if we can all figure out by September 1st whether whether we're in or not, we

[1:39:07] can do that with a follow-up meeting. We can we can have that discussion with

[1:39:10] these these individual follow-up meetings. Uh, but we need to know within

[1:39:14] the next couple of months whether whether your jurisdiction is in or out

[1:39:19] in order to pull those final numbers together. So

[1:39:25] » I think I understand this but if Turner County decides not to link our Linux

[1:39:30] will not pick up our residents. >> Correct.

[1:39:33] » Correct. >> Correct.

[1:39:35] » Unless the unless the township comes up with

[1:39:38] » Right. Right. >> Or like for instance chancellor comes up

[1:39:41] with their share they would serve as chancellor but the township.

[1:39:46] » Correct.

[1:39:50] So it' be good to have this kind of when the question dates

[1:39:54] » Lincoln County gets the fun where are they going to get the money

[1:39:59] from the whole county or just is there >> you mean where where would the money

[1:40:08] » where would the money from the county budget come from the entire county?

[1:40:12] » Yeah, it would probably come from the entire budget. All

[1:40:16] » it would it would come up from the whole all the taxpayers of Lincoln County

[1:40:20] because it would come from our general fund

[1:40:22] » and land. >> Yeah. Everything

[1:40:26] » and Sou Falls. >> Sou Falls.

[1:40:29] » The whole county. >> Then would the funds be fairly

[1:40:33] distributed among all the ambulance services and not just Lennox?

[1:40:41] [laughter] >> That's the question you're going to get.

[1:40:45] If you start giving the Lexington every other

[1:40:48] » that's what Minihaha County they distribute kind of a portion to to

[1:40:53] Garrettson Rapids. >> I understand I understand your question

[1:40:59] but if if we participate we have money we don't have sequestered

[1:41:05] funds from any one particular area. We collect all of our revenue from what

[1:41:12] owner occupied. We have our assessed value and that's what we our property

[1:41:16] taxes and they come from everybody that lives inside Lincoln County. Okay. So if

[1:41:23] we participate in this thing, it's no different than if we spend money on a

[1:41:28] road down in Eden Township. I mean if we if we if we blocked off a road somewhere

[1:41:35] » or if you spend it on 106. >> Yeah.

[1:41:38] or if we put a bridge or if we put a roundabout.

[1:41:42] » It's all the same thing. >> Oh, I would make it different. If you're

[1:41:44] driving Exactly. If you're driving on a road that's in this jurisdiction and you

[1:41:48] get into an accident, they're going to respond.

[1:41:50] » Right. But I'm just saying, but I can drive on a a road that Lincoln County

[1:41:56] did, Turner County did. But if I'm living in Parker, South Dakota,

[1:42:01] and I have I have to call Parker ambulance. I can't call Lennox and I'm

[1:42:04] being taxed for Lennox. >> Okay. So let's say you're driving from

[1:42:08] Sou Falls down to Sous City from the southern part of Sou Falls.

[1:42:10] » I'm going to be from that ambulance though,

[1:42:13] » right? But you're driving south. We don't give them money. They're not going

[1:42:16] to come out to the interstate. Now if you

[1:42:19] » I get what you're saying, but >> and we already we already budget for

[1:42:23] ambulance within our county for other >> You do, but not Lennox. Even though we

[1:42:28] cover 45 square miles, we you guys don't give us any money. You all have

[1:42:32] services. I I need to go and I mean I was water for years and I just need to

[1:42:36] go and see where that money is going to. I mean if it's going to Parker well it

[1:42:41] shouldn't be going to Parker. It should be I mean we didn't realize

[1:42:45] what portion of you know Lennox probably took over.

[1:42:48] » I can tell you in 10 years we've not gotten anything from turn

[1:42:52] » and 100 because we don't budget but I mean we don't send it. We send it to our

[1:42:56] ambulance within the county [clears throat] but I'm saying I need to

[1:42:59] see where it's going. I mean like is is that portion of hometownship going to

[1:43:05] Parker or is it going to where where is it going? cover home, Middleton, and

[1:43:11] » Germantown. >> And then Chancell

[1:43:18] made sir, but you can't I mean, if if we're dealing with tax dollars that

[1:43:22] comes from everybody and Yeah. And if somebody lives in Sou Falls and never

[1:43:27] drives on a county road, that's that we can't take care of them. I mean, that's

[1:43:31] all part of what government is and it's all part of being a county. And you

[1:43:36] know, you don't separate, you don't sequester certain funds for any one

[1:43:40] thing. You know, we got to take care of our public good. We got to take care of

[1:43:45] the sheriff. You know, we got to do all that kind of stuff. So, you pay for

[1:43:49] crime that happens up in the northern Lake County. Okay. All right. So, I

[1:43:54] mean, we all do that. So, if you want to play that game, we can run around that

[1:43:58] track all night, too. In answer to your question, everybody's

[1:44:03] going to pay if we got if we participate.

[1:44:10] » Any other questions or clarifications for next step?

[1:44:14] » Just if I could just

[1:44:19] [laughter]

[1:44:23] I think your immediate stabs are Linux is in crisis. I think you need to

[1:44:29] address Linux. And then I think with then Lincoln County and Turner County

[1:44:35] needs to take advantage of the um the rural health transformation funding.

[1:44:41] They're hiring a consultant to do regional development or regional hubs.

[1:44:47] And I think there's an opportunity, you know, for the the six ambulance services

[1:44:53] that prov provide services to Lincoln County, the six ambulance services that

[1:44:57] provide to Turner County to do to work more closely together to optimize costs,

[1:45:04] to have one medical director, for example, versus six medical directors.

[1:45:09] And, you know, and there's there's some there's probably some opportunities.

[1:45:14] Um, [snorts] but that's down the road and that would be that would require

[1:45:20] some strategic planning uh on a county and probably I mean if I were to do it I

[1:45:26] would do it for Minihaha and Lincoln together

[1:45:29] um or Lincoln and uh Turner together uh and see what the efficiencies of the

[1:45:37] system could be by the ambulances working together.

[1:45:41] So there's I mean in Turner County am I mean in Centerville you've got a 78 and

[1:45:47] a 82y old those are your two ambulance

[1:45:52] » yeah like I know I know we're all in hurting I understand that and at one

[1:45:56] time I know we talked about and it just dropped it just dropped having a

[1:46:00] southern ambulance place and a northern and and staffing somehow figuring out

[1:46:06] how to fund it how to but then it just >> I don't know what happened to it I mean

[1:46:11] I was the auditor at that time so commissioners

[1:46:14] actually. >> Yeah. But there's a real opportunity

[1:46:18] here. I mean I mean there's a bowl of money that's coming into a billion

[1:46:23] dollars is coming into the state of South Dakota. Um $8 million a year for

[1:46:28] EMS that I would encourage these three counties,

[1:46:32] Mhana, Turner, and Lincoln to take advantage of and work together.

[1:46:37] Take off the political hats and look for the greater good of your grandmother. is

[1:46:43] having a stroke at home, your daughter who has a car accident on a highway to

[1:46:48] work, your husband, you know, who has a work accident working at Poet and

[1:46:53] Chancellor. I mean, though that is why we're doing this. And so that I would

[1:47:00] let's let's address the Lennox issue in 2026, in 2027,

[1:47:06] then look at more strategic solutions across these three counties.

[1:47:12] That's fine. >> That's great.

[1:47:13] » Okay. >> Dustin, any other thoughts on Mr. Data?

[1:47:19] » Uh, from a data perspective, I don't think so. I just know this group, uh,

[1:47:24] you're not the only ones who are going to be going through this over the next 5

[1:47:27] years. This is going to be an incredibly common political atmosphere across the

[1:47:32] state of South Dakota in the next 5 years. Unfortunately, EMS reimbursement

[1:47:36] just has not kept up with operational costs and it's changed from kind of

[1:47:41] neighbors helping neighbors to how in the world do we come up with a $700,000

[1:47:45] deficit a year and that's the situation that a lot of these and it goes both

[1:47:50] directions. We have municipalbased services that have responded to the

[1:47:54] county for years and they do it for free. We have county based services

[1:47:57] where 85% of their volume is in the city uh that the main city of their county

[1:48:01] and the city provides zero funding. So we've kind of gotten away for so long

[1:48:05] with with not having equitable funding in place and it's just not realistic. in

[1:48:10] the next five years like services are going to go under because we don't have

[1:48:14] equitable funding. So like kudos to you guys for being in the room. I know these

[1:48:18] conversations can sometimes be very emotional when you're talking about

[1:48:22] dollars and cents and and not having direct lineage of where the money is

[1:48:25] coming from and I understand how passionate people can be about that. But

[1:48:29] making sure that you guys preserve the system you have in place right now in

[1:48:34] these counties is really important because it's really good. So

[1:48:40] Good. All right. Um, yes. Thank you everyone for being here and I see the at

[1:48:46] the table and our townships especially. Thanks for being here and encourage you

[1:48:49] to continue to be a voice at the commission link county commission

[1:48:53] meeting Turner County here in the city as well. Just so we want to be able to

[1:48:58] represent and find a solution that works for everybody. So, um, it's a learning

[1:49:02] process and thanks for being patient and um, Nate, you've done a lot of work and

[1:49:07] energy and Allen with this. So, thank you guys. Um, and thanks for being here.

[1:49:11] I look for a motion to adjourn. >> So, moved.

[1:49:14] » I have a second. >> Guess we'll stay here.

[1:49:18] » Second. [laughter] >> All in favor signify by saying I

[1:49:23] » I oppos. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you everybody.

[1:49:29] » Thank you.

[1:49:44] 2016.

[1:50:05] I know. [laughter]

[1:50:16] Hallelujah.

[1:50:38] There are many.

[1:51:01] They are

[1:51:13] left

[1:51:22] in that area.

[1:51:28] I am really

[1:51:54] territory.

[1:52:05] I'm like,

[1:52:13] [laughter]

[1:52:23] » I know they do. Mark

[1:52:46] the camera.

[1:52:53] Yeah.

[1:53:10] Sorry.

Lennox Ambulance Funding Meeting 6.16.2026

Transcript