Davis poised to expand paramedic service

Wrangling between cities and Davis County officials over who can and who can't have paramedics and who will pay for them appears to be at an end, a leaked report indicates.

A special subcommittee is expected Friday to ask city and county officials to increase paramedic units in the county from the present five to eight, with no county-imposed tax increase to fund them, the Deseret Morning News learned Tuesday.

Paramedic service in the county, until now operated exclusively by the Sheriff's Office and Layton city, will be expanded by three units to include one additional unit in Layton and two new units in the south end of the county, according to county officials.

If the full committee of Davis County mayors and other officials approves the recommendation at their Friday meeting, the new units are expected to be in operation by Jan. 1, 2005, said County Clerk/Auditor Steve Rawlings.

"Because the voter-approved paramedic levy is already included in our general fund rate, and that rate will not be increased, there will not be a tax increase," Rawlings said, adding, "We're reducing the overall general fund rate by the amount of the paramedic rate and breaking it out for accounting purposes."

The issue of letting cities and not just the Sheriff's Office have licensed paramedics has been a topic of discussion for at least a dozen years in Davis County, with Bountiful officials taking the lead in asking for fire department-based paramedics in the south end of the county.

Rawlings, who was asked to head the subcommittee by County Commission Chairman Dannie McConkie, who heads the full committee, said one recommendation from the subcommittee will be to have the county and cities contribute equally to the paramedic costs.

"The county will contribute $250,000 per paramedic unit," Rawlings said. "We'll take $1 million of the $2 million the paramedic levy raises and give it to Layton and the South Davis Fire District. They'll have to come up with equal amounts to make it work."

All of the government entities involved agreed they would provide additional paramedic services without asking for tax increases, Rawlings said. "It means all of us will have to relook at everything we're doing as we work up our budgets for next year. For the county, it may mean a hiring freeze like two years ago."

Bountiful City Manager Tom Hardy said as proposed, the recommendations will fund only about 70 percent of the paramedic costs, which means cities will have to support the additional paramedic units financially. "We'd rather have 100 percent of the cost picked up by the county, but in the spirit of compromise, we're happy with this."

Hardy said the city has most of the answers to its questions on increased costs and the possibility of increased city taxes and will need another 10 days to examine all the costs sufficiently to know whether new taxes will be needed.

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