INSIDE

District supporting EMS tax

The local fire district is supporting a ballot measure that would establish a new county sales tax to support the county paramedic system.
“I certainly encourage everyone to vote yes,” said fire chief Bill Skinner, echoing an earlier consensus vote of district commissioners in September.

Voters are being asked to approve a new one-tenth of one percent sales tax that will be split between the cities and the county to support both Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and criminal justice. The state mandates that the county can keep 60 percent of the funds and the cities get 40 percent, and each must use a third of their share for new criminal justice purposes, not to supplant existing funding. The remaining two-thirds of the money will go into the shared account to fund the countywide emergency medical services (EMS) system.

“If it doesn’t pass we’ll lose paramedic service outside Bellingham in 2006,” Skinner said. For Point Roberts patients it would mean the only option available if they needed advanced life support would be a helicopter transport, with a price tag of $8,000, compared to a $500 trip in an ambulance. The fire district would also need to transport all patients not needing advanced life support and Skinner said he could see some of the district’s volunteer emergency medical technicians (EMTs) stop responding to aid calls if they knew it meant a four hour or longer transport to Bellingham.

If the new sales tax passes, the county’s Medic One EMS system would continue to operate but would reduce costs by asking the districts to handle many life support transports as possible. While this would still put a burden on local fire districts, Skinner said, “they’ll be there as a backup.”

In fire district news, fire commissioner Susan Brownrigg wants people to know it wasn’t her fault the state public disclosure commission (PDC) had her on a list of candidates fined for not filing disclosure forms on time – it was theirs.

“It was never my error, it was completely their error,” Brownrigg said at the October 12 meeting of fire commissioners. “I did not have to fill out that form.”

Brownrigg said she was following information that she did not have to file a financial disclosure form because candidates in jurisdictions of under 1,000 registered voters have no reporting requirements. However, the PDC had incorrectly listed her in Whatcom Fire District 1, headquartered in Everson, with 4,001 voters.