EDITORIAL: Baker City’s new ambulance database is welcome

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Baker City Manager Jonathan Cannon has made a valuable addition to the city’s website, www.bakercity.com.

The new database has a considerable amount of information about the city’s ambulance service. A link to the ambulance service information page is on the home page of the website.

Whether the city will continue to operate ambulances, or whether Baker County, which under Oregon law is responsible for choosing ambulance providers, will need to pick a replacement, is uncertain.

On March 22 the Baker City Council, after reviewing a report in which Cannon lists the financial challenges of operating ambulances and expresses his belief that the city can’t afford to continue doing so, sent a notice to the Baker County Board of Commissioners that the city intended to curtail ambulance service on Sept. 30, 2022.

That prompted commissioners to write a request for proposals (RFP) for prospective ambulance providers, with a June 3 deadline to respond.

The City Council decided May 10 to send a proposal to the county. Cannon is preparing a draft of the proposal for councilors to consider at their May 24 meeting.

The new database includes detailed reports showing changes over time in what percentage of ambulance bills the city actually collects. Other documents list ambulance calls where the patient declined to be transferred or doesn’t need to be taken to the hospital, and in some of those instances the city doesn’t send a bill.

Another record shows the fire department’s monthly overtime costs. The total overtime tab increased from $69,900 for the nine-month period July 2020 through March 2021, to $135,600 for the period July 2021 through March 2022. That’s $65,700 more in overtime costs, a 94% increase.

Firefighter/paramedics who are members of the Baker City Firefighters Association union blame that increase on the city’s decision in the summer of 2021 to have three division chiefs change from working the 24 hours on, 48 hours off shift that firefighter/paramedics have, to a more standard shift. That change, which reduced the number of firefighter/paramedics on call around the clock, has made it more likely that off-duty staff will need to come in, such as when there are multiple calls simultaneously, union members say. The union also filed a grievance over that change.

The level of interest among local residents in this issue is understandably high. The turnout at the City Council’s May 10 meeting, with people occupying all the chairs and many others standing, makes that obvious.

The situation is not limited to determining which agency operates ambulances. If the city ends its service, it would also have to lay off six firefighter/paramedics, a reduction in service that many of those who spoke to the City Council on May 10 opposed.

Given the circumstances, Cannon was wise to make readily available so much information to the public, rather than requiring that residents go through the sometimes cumbersome process of requesting documents, through Oregon’s Public Records Law, that they’re entitled to anyway. The new database gives citizens a more thorough perspective of the situation.

Although the new ambulance service database doesn’t include the city’s current and past budgets, those are also available elsewhere on the city’s website. Those budgets show how the city has been able to maintain its staffing levels, in both the fire department and police department, which make up about 62% of the general fund, despite the challenges of collecting ambulance bills.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor