Grandview-area voters will decide on funding for ambulance service

Voters in Mabton, Grandview and the surrounding Yakima County area will decide in the Nov. 4 general election whether to fund emergency ambulance service provided by Prosser Memorial Hospital.

Hospit-al leaders want voters to approve a four-year levy that would keep those ambulances running at their current levels.

Called Proposition 1,
the levy would boost prop-erty taxes 25 cents for every
$1,000 of assessed valua-tion. That's $25 per year for a $100,000 home.

It requires a 60 percent supermajority vote to pass.

Hospital ambulance employees have been knocking on doors to support the measure, while volunteer firefighters in both cities have formally endorsed it. So has the Grandview City Council.

Even staunch anti-tax advocates plan to vote in favor of this one.

"I don't want anybody dying if it's just a blasted ambulance that can save him," said Larry Bolan, who led a vocal campaign in the spring against a pro-
posed private utility tax increase by the city of Grandview. Voters rejected it.

Fire chiefs in the area
say it would cost up to
$1 million for their depart-ments to replace the ambu-lance service.

"If the levy doesn't pass ... we don't know what's going to happen," said Luke Cussins, Mabton fire chief. "The level of service is definitely going to decline."

That's true, hospital leaders say.

Response times might be twice as long without taxpayer help.

Prosser Memorial, a
public hospital, runs ambu-lances on emergency calls to Mabton, Grandview and the unincorporated area of Yakima County around them.

The four-ambulance fleet also serves Prosser and portions of Benton County, and performs non-emergency transport in Richland.

The fleet stations vehi-cles in Grandview and Prosser.

The service has been operating more than $400,000 in the red since 2006 when Medicare began
denying full reimburse-ments.

There is no private ambulance service in the area.

November's levy applies only to the Yakima County cities.

Benton County commis-sioners last year declined the hospital's request for a
similar measure, though they promise to at least talk about it again in 2009, said
Benton County Commis-sioner Max Benitz Jr.

Watching and reacting to the election will be one of the final tasks for hospital CEO Jim Tavary, who is resigning Nov. 24 to take a position in Wisconsin.

For two years, Tavary and hospital officials have
pleaded with local govern-ments to help save the ambulance service. This
year, he convinced the
cities of Mabton, Grandview and Prosser, as well as Yakima County, to sign one-year contracts.

He recently asked Prosser City Council members the same thing for 2009, but the city's proposed budget declines.

Tavary will pitch the same contract request to Mabton and Grandview if the levy fails, but both cities are strapped for cash and eliminated staff positions in 2008.

The hospital itself is funded by Benton County taxpayers as far east as Benton City. Yakima County residents are not assessed.

The proposed levy would add to an emergency medical service levy all Yakima County residents already pay. That levy, also 25 cents per $1,000 assessed valuation, funds extra medical training and equipment for firefighters, but no ambulance service.

The hospital measure is different than a similar levy proposed for the city of Yakima for emergency medical services. That one -- also for 25 cents per $1,000 -- will go to voters Feb. 3.

Tax-supported emer-gency services are hardly new, the hospital leaders argue.

The Sunnyside Fire Department, for example, runs an ambulance service paid for by a tax on city residents.

"Every other ambulance service in the area is dependent on taxpayers to bridge that gap," said Jason Jones, hospital spokesman.

* Ross Courtney can be reached at 930-8798 or rcourtney@yakimaherald.com.

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