Washington Co. EMS levy vote delayed once again

WASHINGTON — Voters will have to wait at least six more months to weigh in on a ballot measure that could help pay for area emergency medical services in Washington County, after advisers and decision-makers failed to agree on a funding level for the proposed tax levy.

The Washington County Board of Supervisors voted 1-4 Jan. 2 on a motion proposed by their EMS Advisory Committee, turning down ballot language that would have authorized a 50-cent levy to help cover ambulance needs, emergency communications expenses, and volunteer training.

“We had concerns, and our concerns have not been answered,” Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. said shortly before the vote. “I cannot vote for approving the resolution that was presented by the EMS council in their report. If that means we’re going to have to delay it, then we’re going to have to delay it.”

The outcome delayed critical decisions until after a public notice deadline needed to print the issue on ballots in March. Washington County voters will now have to wait until at least Sept. 9 to weigh in at the polls; That’s the next date that state code allows for an election over initiatives to fund EMS systems.

The proposed measure would give voters a chance to declare emergency medical services an “essential service” that local governments are obligated to provide, much like how state law requires certain law enforcement and fire department coverage to every resident.

In doing so, the public measure would have authorized the county to launch a new property tax levy, at an amount specified in the ballot language, to pay for those services. Advocates say the money is essential to keep the system running effectively as costs for training and equipment go up.

“The days of having to flip pancakes so you can make a difference in the outcome of somebody’s medical condition (are) past,” said Washington County EMS Association President Toby Hancock, also a higher-up at Riverside’s emergency response service, in an interview last summer. “It’s not feasible for … volunteers who get out of bed in the middle of the night to have to rely on donations to have the equipment they need.”

Supervisors identify sticking points

Decision-makers cited three main reasons in their vote against the ballot language.

First and foremost, board members said they disagreed with the advisory committee’s push to set the tax at 50 cents per thousand dollars of valuation. The supervisors have long called for more ambiguous language that would grant elected officials taxing flexibility from one year to the next depending on EMS needs, up to a maximum of 75 cents.

Supervisors have argued they’d need that flexibility moving forward, citing state-imposed restrictions on other county taxes, and ever-changing needs at each leg of the emergency medical service system.

“This is just a simple matter of padding, just in case,” Supervisor Stan Stoops said. “For some reason, the EMS council is not willing to give that extra padding, of an extra quarter.”

On other fronts, the supervisors said they needed a better understanding of each volunteer EMS group’s budget, and needed time to establish a maximum dollar amount that the levy could collect.

An EMS levy in Henry County, for example, passed in September. It authorized a 75-cent levy for the next 15 years with the caveat that revenue from the tax couldn’t exceed $1.1 million. If the levy ever generates more than that, it would automatically be lowered to ensure total revenue stays within the limit.

Washing County’s Supervisors last week said they believed such a limit was legally required, despite the issue rarely coming up in earlier discussions. They cited guidance from the county’s third-party bond attorneys.

“We’re the final taxing authority, I want to make sure that I know what I’m taxing for and why,” Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. said. “Dorsey & Whitney, the attorneys, say that’s the way they recommend it be done, with a dollar amount and a levy amount.”

EMS officials push back on issues

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Local EMS advocates said they were frustrated and disappointed with the latest delay, having spent years preparing for a public measure they initially hoped to put on ballots in November of 2024.

EMS Advisory Council Chair Jim Lester said the proposed 50-cent levy was the product of three years of deliberation among stakeholders including ambulance staff, EMS volunteers, fire departments and emergency communication officials. If passed, it would bring in about $740,000 to split between local EMS groups, the ambulance service and the emergency communications department in charge of dispatching them.

“There really is no formula, the group received information from the EMS association, we had asked each of the services for … what their needs were,” Lester said. “I don’t think we should be asking for the max, just because the code says you can shouldn’t be the reason you do it. We were trying to be conservative.”

Part of that rationale was an effort not to outpace current taxes for the services. Some townships in Washington County already tax residents with a levy of up to 54 cents, which funds bundled fire protection and EMS services.

Lester said the council was weary of any plans that would do more than double that property tax asking in the effort to help pay for services those townships already have.

“There’s some concern, if you’re all of a sudden asking taxpayers to pay more than they’re paying now, for a service they’re already getting, we have to be conservative and go slow in that approach,” he said. “We don’t want to just go, ‘The code says we can get 75 cents per thousand, so we’re going to get 75 cents per thousand.’”

The advisory council’s chair conceded that a levy of 50 cents may eventually prove insufficient to adequately pay for emergency medical service needs.

But he argued that in that case, voters should make the call to raise the levy further in a follow-up election, not supervisors.

“I don’t think that would be all that impossible to do, when you’re able to show that need,” Lester said. “But I think leaving it wide-open was not the recommendation that the advisory council wanted to move forward with.”

Holdups go beyond policy questions

Both EMS advisers and county supervisors said they were confused with the other’s arguments, and worried about a lack of communication between their respective groups.

Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Young said he’d met with officials like Lester in the days since Jan. 2, but called for the two boards to sit down and iron out more of the details before moving forward.

“I think that the line of communication needs to be opened up, so we understand where they come from,” he said. “I’ve asked several times for how they come up with 50 cents. I have yet to see that.”

Lester, meanwhile, said the ball had been in the supervisors’ court for months. The EMS council gave its formal recommendations in late May to the county’s top elected body, and reiterated those suggestions — along with a decision-making timeline and ballot language templates — with a written report in the fall.

“That memo, dated May 30, said that we continue to work on the final details … but recommend a 50-cent (levy),” Lester said. “We offered them our recommendation at the end of May, and nothing happened after that. We didn’t hear anything more from them.”

One supervisor, Marcus Fedler, voted in favor of the proposed 50-cent ballot language. While he said he still preferred the flexibility of an up-to 75-cent levy, he was satisfied with the advisory council’s reports and rationale and said he trusted the guidance of the 16 experts on the advisory committee.

“Making that number higher, sure, it could potentially make it better,” he said. “However, that is not what the advisory council recommends … they met with not only EMS groups but fire departments and other people in the community to try and address this issue. I think they did a valiant effort.”

Even if supervisors strong-arm ballot language that departs from the council’s recommendations, improved communication may be necessary for the levy to meaningfully advance.

Supervisor Seward argued the discrepancies between advisers and decision-makers may not be conducive the ballot issue’s eventual success at the polls, where it would need at least 60% approval from voters to take effect.

“I’m not going to blame anybody, one side or the other, there’s enough to go around,” he said. “We’ve got to move forward, and getting this hammered out to where we’ve got an agreement is going to be the primary thing. If we don’t have an agreement, it doesn’t bode well for any ballot language, or any ballot that goes to a vote.”

Also at play is considerable confusion over the steps needed to put an EMS levy on ballots in the first place. Misunderstandings on that question in state law have already caused delays.

Efforts to throw the question to voters in November were stymied by an outdated copy of Iowa Code, which didn’t mention a procedural step needed ahead of the election. Supervisors only discovered that step after its deadline, while consulting with the county attorney on unrelated issues in the proposal.

Similarly, newfound calls to name a maximum dollar amount authorized by the levy are legally necessary, according to private bonding attorneys the county hired. But the issue was seldom discussed by supervisors or EMS council members until the Jan. 2 meeting, and caught many by surprise when it did come up.

“(Jim Lester) did not know the dollar amount had to be on the ballot, which, I don’t think a lot of people did,” Young said at another meeting on Tuesday. “I mean, I’ll admit, I didn’t even know until Henry County’s, and then I talked to some other people.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com