MCCALL, Idaho — Valley County residents will be seeing an EMS levy on their November ballot. The levy would increase the taxable amount to about $35 per $100,000 and would go toward wages, infrastructure, and capital improvements. McCall Fire Chief Garret de Jong says a fourth ambulance is needed to help cover the growing Valley County area and overlap calls.
- McCall, home to roughtly 4,000 full-time residents, has grown in popularity and population in recent years and first responders say they're struggling to keep up.
- Chief Garrett de Jong pointed to a recent example when all three people on shift were responding to a medical call at a hotel when the next call came in.
- The fire district was formed after the previous volunteer model didn't see enough interest.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
McCall, home to roughly 4,000 full-time residents, has grown in popularity and population in recent years and first responders say they're struggling to keep up. One ambulance district and three fire districts cover all of Valley County; an area of nearly 4,000 square miles.
That's why voters will see an EMS levy on the ballot on election day.
"The system was built with the future not in mind. And now we have to catch up," Valley County EMS Chairperson Travis Smith tells me. "We have three ambulances that operate 24/7. We're a rural community. It's hard to touch people when your neighbor's 400 yards away from you."
The fire district was formed after the previous volunteer model didn't see enough interest.
"To hire full-time career personnel, well, they cost a lot more than paying somebody $15 an hour for two hours here and two hours there," Smith adds.
Levy funds would primarily cover wages, increasing the assessed taxable amount to roughly $35 per $100,000. The operating budget for Valley County EMS is about $1.5 million, half of what is needed to run the ambulance district alone. With priorities put on covering paychecks, they've put infrastructure improvements on the back burner. To meet the growing needs of the community, McCall's fire chief tells me they need a fourth ambulance. Chief Garrett de Jong pointed to a recent example when all three people on shift were responding to a medical call at a hotel, when the next call came in.
"We got dispatched to a fully involved structure fire with a propane explosion on the north end of town," de Jong recalls. "So, the ambulance crew loaded the patient up into the ambulance. On their way to the hospital, they dropped the fire captain off at the station to respond to the engine by himself. I came in from home and responded at tender, and we had a 15-minute delayed response time to that incident. It took about seven minutes, seven or eight minutes from the hotel to the station to get on the engine to respond to the fire. So, if that would have happened and we would have had a crew on the engine, our response time would have been about six minutes. The reaction time would have been about 30 seconds. Instead, the reaction time was about seven minutes plus the response time.
"So 15 times longer," I think aloud.
"15 times longer," he confirms.
"We are trying to solve a serious problem in Valley County. It makes me a little emotional," Smith says, "And to see three fire chiefs who are so invested in a problem that's not necessarily theirs, who have pushed this from the back for the last 10 years, trying to get momentum, it's a moment of pride in this community."
