City to end ambulance service Sept. 1

BATAVIA — City Council has agreed to end the city’s ambulance service by this fall.

After months of talking about what to do with the service, council came to the decision during its budget talk Thursday evening. The group is expected to vote on a resolution during its business meeting Monday at City Hall.

The resolution will authorize the city to first enter into agreements with area municipalities Monday and then officially terminate the agreements as of Sept. 1. That will mean no more city ambulance service for all residents of Genesee County, including the city.

Seventeen of 18 Genesee County municipalities have indicated they’d like to extend the current ambulance service agreement another year. City Manager Jason Molino said. Pembroke Fire District did not renew its contract by the Jan. 15 deadline. The city must first “execute an extension and modification agreement” to continue offering the service before it can then notify those municipalities of the city’s termination clause, Molino said.

Pembroke at odds with city on agreement. See related story.

“What it means is we’re not going to provide ambulance service as of Sept. 1,” he said. “We’ll be working very closely with the county and the hospital as to how the area will get ambulance service after that.”

Some council members want to make it clear that their decision is not just about halting the service. There has always been a financial burden for the city to offer it.

“If we’re making money, none of us would want to give it up,” Councilman Frank Ferrando said. “I think we want to provide this service, and it’s an excellent service, we just can’t foot the bill. We can’t foot the bill for the whole damn county.”

City officials have previously attempted to work with Genesee County on a solution to ambulance service, Council President Charlie Mallow said. The city got nowhere.

“County legislators wouldn’t even add it to one of their subcommittees,” he said. “Everybody wants to set a date; we need to have a date.”

Councilman Tim Buckley suggested giving municipalities until Dec. 31. Others, including Councilman Rose Mary Christian, said that the city has to give at least six months notice, so Sept. 1 is fair. Council agreed, by straw poll, to go with the earlier deadline.

Molino said the city will have to answer many questions over the next several months, including how to handle current ambulance personnel and equipment. It’s likely that a central company, agency or a consortium — suggested by Ferrando — will handle future ambulance service countywide, Molino said.

In his 2009-10 budget message, Molino predicted a five-year outlook that includes increases of 10 percent for health insurance, 5 to 10 percent for retirement, 5 percent for transportation and 3 percent for other miscellaneous expenses in the ambulance fund. As of last year, the ambulance fund owed more than $1.2 million of inter-fund loans to the general fund because ambulance expenses exceeded revenues.

Another big consideration is the cost of medical benefits for retired employees, he said. The first payout would begin in 2018 for the first eligible employee and would last until 2044 when the youngest employee would reach 65 and the benefit would discontinue.

“Either method of funding post employment benefits exceeds an accumulated $2.9 million,” his message says. “The proposed budget does not include any funding to support post employment benefits because the projected revenues would not be able to meet the added expense.”

In other words, ambulance service doesn’t make enough money to be self-sustaining and future retiree costs would be a multi-million dollar liability for the city.

The city is not alone. A study of Western New York’s retirement liabilities for the nine largest local governments showed a combined $3.7 billion in “unfunded obligations” over the next 30 years. Hard choices must be made to proactively deal with that problem, the study from the University at Buffalo Regional Institute said.