[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.