Ambulance-scam or Boondoggle?

Background:
Seemingly out of nowhere, this spring the City announced its plan to begin a new ambulance service in FY 07-08. Starting price tag would be one million dollars [That is two cents in the real estate tax rate.] The rationale presented in the Daily Progress was that CARS response times were slow.

Take a look at CARS:
Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad has been in existence over 40 years. It is one of the busiest all volunteer squads in the USA. The City has never funded CARS!!!!! Albemarle County does give it funds from its budget. CARS owns about 8 ambulances and on any given shift, operates 2 or 3 of them, leaving the majority idle.

Furthermore, many localities pay a bonus stipend to their firemen who are also medics/EMT's. Charlottesville FD does not. Albemarle County pays its firemen approximately $10,000 annually in recognition of that extra skill. The County deploys their fire staff to CARS, generally during weekdays when it is hard to get enough volunteers to work. This also allows medics to stay clinically active with their skills. Charlottesville FD does not do this.

And what's up with those slow response times?
Well, here's where it gets really interesting. If you look at the numbers- and that's where the story is- it turns out that the national standard is that a rescue agency should respond to calls within 8 minutes 90% of the time. How was CARS doing? It responded within 8 minutes 84% of the time. That's right- it was off by 6%. I have seen no analysis of where and when the slower responses occurred. Friday nights? Wednesday at noon? Northern stretches of the County? No data analysis. This is what energized/enraged/engaged me. That lack of critical thinking about a problem is not acceptable, in my opinion. Rather than a sledgehammer response of starting a whole new, taxpayer supported City service, why not start out by figuring out what exactly was not up to speed, and trying to formulate a focused solution? In other words, if CARS is slow on a given day, should we put in the ability to change red lights to green, or beef up staffing that day, or staff an extra ambulance? It is not justifiable to start a whole new, expensive, taypayer supported program as the first response to a not big problem!

Did you know?

• That the City proposes using the million dollars to buy 2 new ambulances? [Remember- CARS has many parked ambulances on any given day.]
  
• That the million dollars is in the budget and has been allocated for the new service to start?
  
• That the City said the new ambulances would be located at their fire station which is a stone's throw away from CARS? If slow response times are a geographic problem- serving northern County, for instance, how does the proposed location make anything better?
• That City ambulance runs would add to the data as to the number of calls the fire department responds to in a year?
• That any new City service would be a recurring expense for taxpayers in terms of salaries, health insurance, pensions, etc.?
• That there was such an outcry over this that a regional task force was formed AFTER THE OUTCRY to look into the problem? That's my beef: City Council was derelict in not taking that approach initially. Instead, they voted to spend a million dollars of tax payer money to start a brand new program. That level of performance is not acceptable.
• The former fire chief is now a member of City Council.
• The current mayor, Mr. Brown, who is a candidate for City Council, stated in a Daily Progress profile that he was concerned about this million dollar expenditure. He's the mayor! It went through on his watch. He expressed his concern after the outcry.
• That sometimes police may hold back an ambulance crew which arrives on scene, for various reasons. The crew is not said to have arrived [think: response times] until they actual reach their patient[s].