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Le Roy residents grapple with $60K question: What to do about ambulance service?

By Howard B. Owens

To keep a local ambulance service, and the perception, if not the reality, of quicker response times to medical calls, Le Roy residents may be asked to consider a tax increase.

The tax increase has become known, after a meeting Saturday where the issue was discussed, as the "price of a pizza" question.

The comparison comes from an observation by John Condidorio, who deduced that with the average assessed value of a property in Le Roy at $100,000, an increase of 17 cents per thousand comes to another $17 a year on local property tax bills.

That, he said, is the price of a pizza. A small price to pay, he suggested, for local service.

"Stuff happens," said Condidorio, a detective with Le Roy PD. "Stuff happens quick. It happens significantly and, believe it or not, it may happen to you, so that $17 a year may be the saving grace so you're not laying out on that ice for 20 minutes. You may only have to lay on that ice for five minutes, because you slip and fell and broke your hip or broke your ankle, or whatever. It's a long, long time waiting for that ambulance. I've been there, I've seen it, I've done it, and it sucks. Really."

His boss, Chief Chris Hayward recalled that 45 years ago the entire reason the Le Roy Ambulance Service was created was concern over response times.

The central question still hasn't changed, he said.

Back then, the two hospitals in Batavia maintained ambulance services and rigs were based in Batavia. It would take 15 to 20 minutes for an ambulance to reach Le Roy.

At least one person's death in 1970 was attributed to the slow response time, Hayward said.

These days, there are private ambulance services available, such as the nonprofit Mercy EMS and for-profit Rural Metro, among others, that could provide a lower cost alternative for the residents of Le Roy.

Bill Schutt, general manager for Mercy EMS, and Gene Chisholm, from Rural Metro, were at Saturday's meeting.

Both said if the Le Roy service went away, they would be able to base an ambulance at the Tountas Avenue LAS location and provide a similar level of service for Le Roy.

That sounded pretty good to Bryan Monacelli, who suggested the town open up a request-for-proposal process so companies could bid on a contract to be the ambulance provider for Le Roy.

"I sympathize that Le Roy Ambulance has a strong local history, but if private industry could come in and provide a better or comparable service for less money, as a taxpayer, as somebody with kids here, that's what I would do," Monacelli said.

There would be some nuances of difference between what LAS offers and what others might offer.

The current service owns two ambulances and a fly car. Except in rare circumstances, the ambulances respond only to calls within the town. There are transports to Rochester hospitals at times, and to UMMC, but usually one LAS ambulance is always in Le Roy.

Schutt said if Mercy were serving Le Roy, it would park an ambulance at Tountas Avenue, but that ambulance would respond to other calls on the eastern side of the county. If it did leave Le Roy, another ambulance would be dispatched from Batavia to backfill.

Le Roy Ambulance serves 8,500 residents and responded to 1,200 calls in 2014.

The cost of the service has increased over the years and currently the service operates at annual loss of $20,000 to $45,000 a year.

The town has been bridging some of the shortfall, but can't continue to pick up the slack without a tax increase. The suggested increase would raise $60,000 for the service.

There's no certainty, in the current healthcare climate, that costs won't continue to escalate, which would mean tax increases.

Lloyd Hogle pointed out that if local residents decided to eliminate the ambulance service, there would be no bringing it back if they later changed their minds.

Bill Kettle, who led the discussion, said community leaders are trying to collect as much input and feedback from Le Roy residents as possible before there's a decision on what to do about ambulance service in Le Roy.

bud prevost

If Mercy EMS could maintain a presence in Leroy with 2 dedicated vehicles, I'd be all for it. Leroy has 2 interstates within it's boundaries, as well as 3 major NYS highways.The populations of Bergen, Pavilion, and Stafford may be better served with a base on the east side of the county. If 1 ambulance is all to be based here, I'll suck up the extra $17 a year to keep the Leroy service as is.

Mar 10, 2015, 10:43pm Permalink
Dave Olsen

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the LeRoy Ambulance service all volunteer? If so, then a professional service would necessarily cost more. I can't see how anyone could expect a comparable cost. I don't know what is right for LeRoy and would never presume I do, but if you want better service it will cost more.

Mar 11, 2015, 8:49am Permalink
Ed Hartgrove

You may be correct on that, Jennifer.
From Mercy Flight's website at,
http://www.mercyflight.org/content/pages/help

"Mercy Flight is a non-profit corporation and relies on contributions from our supporters to keep us in the air. While third party payors reimburse us a portion of each flight's true cost, we still rely on additional funding from individual contributions, corporate donations, community fundraisers, County grants and dwindling NYS appropriations."

Not sure what "third party payors" entails.

Mar 11, 2015, 10:23pm Permalink
Jennifer Keys

Thanks, Ed. I knew we didn't pay for the other choices out of taxes.

I agree with Bud, if response time is not negatively impacted I'm ok with change if it is necessary. I'm not sure how, legally, we can even continue to spend tax dollars to keep a for profit company afloat.

Currently we have two ambulances, but staff for only one at any given time. My understanding is that Rural Metro said they could staff two at all times.

There are a lot of questions out there still.

Mar 12, 2015, 12:09pm Permalink
Raymond Richardson

"My understanding is that Rural Metro said they could staff two at all times."

They could actually staff more than two if Le Roy needed that many.

Just an FYI, Rural Metro, is a for profit business, unlike Mercy EMS. Any cost associated with Rural Metro would be covered by A.) Insurance and/or B.) the patient. The only cost to taxpayers would be if Rural Metro insisted on a contract for services with Le Roy, which isn't uncommon since they have a service contract with the city of Rochester.

Mar 12, 2015, 4:06pm Permalink

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