The privatizers are on a roll. Last night's meeting was attended by all Village Board members, and representatives from the Town Boards of Hector and Covert. Those wishing to go to billing, were in a clear majority, in spite of what, in my humble opinion, is an obvious majority of the public, remaining in opposition.
No resolutions were passed but they took a straw poll of the Village Board. Chris Thomas, John Hrubos, and Rordan Hart are strongly supportive of billing, Debbie Notke said that she was on the fence, and Marty Petrovic said that he is leaning in favor of billing.
Mayor Petrovic said that some form of public meeting would be held before going to billing. This is good. I was worried that they might pass a resolution to begin billing last night, and if it were up to the 3 neocons, I suppose they would have.
You will see a link to an mp3 file of the meeting below. If you click on the link, you can listen from within your browser, but there is usually a way to move this mp3 file to your desktop. In Firefox, you wait for the whole file to move to the browser, (a minute or two) then you go - File - Save Page As..... and you can put it anywhere you want. The advantage is that you can then listen with other programs (Real Player, Itunes etc.) which allow you to adjust equalizer settings and they give you a time counter. With the time counter and my notes below, you can jump to the part that interests you.
The first half of the meeting was tedious. John Hrubos insisted on going over the Fire Department's 2010 budget with a fine tooth comb, in-spite of very little increase in the budget from this year.
I had encouraged Ulysses Town Board candidate, Kevin Romer to come, and he did, but he couldn't stay long enough to participate in the EMS billing discussion. Sorry Kevin.
0 hrs-45mins-20sec One of the Town Board members asks a question about groups using the Fire Hall and wether they should be charged. This might interest the Back to Democracy steering committee members (of which I used to be one) I have often swept the floor and tidied up after Back to Democracy events, and I doubt, that in the years that I have been going, that we used more than five dollars worth of paper towels and toilet paper, so I think this is a silly thing for the Board to worry about. But perhaps Back to Democracy should donate a family pack of paper towels and toilet paper (with their name on every sheet) in order to alleviate the Boards concern that we are using more than what we are entitled to as taxpayers.
Rordan Hart suggests installing security cameras hooked up to a DVR. Maybe we can catch those rascals using too many paper towels. That'll help control costs!
0 47 42 Marty wraps up the Fire Department budget portion of the discussion, and they approve it. Then they begin a long discussion of the EMS budget, before discussing the revenue side.
0 50 20 Chris describes current staffing. I'm confused, but I think we are staffed entirely with paid professionals except for Monday - Thursday nights from 6pm to 6am - volunteers on call, and Friday from 6pm to 12 midnight - volunteer. He calls this almost 24/3, which is confusing. I wish we could just use percentages. Take the total hours in a week- 168 then 54 of them are volunteers on call. That's 32% volunteer, right?
1 04 0 Chris says that the increase from this years EMS budget to next year's proposed budget is 118,000 but then says that about 25 % of that increase is due to a correction in budget procedures. 118,000 minus 25% = 88,500 increase. So 88,500 divided by 8000 residents of the district = $11. Eleven bucks per person. Eleven bucks to keep our single payer system, keep the volunteers who don't like billing, keep the system as it has been for 40 years, and should continue to be. Eleven bucks to ensure that those without insurance need not fear calling for help when they need it. Eleven bucks. This is a crisis?
1 31 0 After much more of the fine tooth combing of the expense side of the EMS budget (Hrubos upset about expensive coats and too much money on the line for fuel) they finally pass a resolution to except the expense side of the budget. $475,828 Then Marty starts the revenue question. He mentions the public meeting from last year and acknowledges a lack of support for going to billing (doesn't acknowledge the more than 2 to 1 ration against billing) Then he points to the "fairly large increase" in the budget - thankfully he doesn't call it a crisis, as others have. (see my eleven dollar calculation above) Then he states that there will be another public meeting.
1 34 0 Chris says that the call volume went down last year. His figures for estimating revenue are assuming 600 calls per year, down from 675. He figures he can get $351,997 per year by going to billing. Big money. Mighty tempting. The village revenue this year is about 1.5 million. Imagine that's your income. You're fairly rich. It's tax time. You see a way that you could cheat on your taxes and save $352,000. Big money. Mighty tempting. This is an imperfect analogy, because tax fraud is illegal and going to billing isn't, but that aside, the moral implications are the same. Hopefully, some people don't cheat on their taxes because they realize that if they don't pay their share, then that tax burden will fall on others. It's actually worse for the Village, because if they don't pay that 352G, and the insurance companies do, then before billing society back in the form of premiums, the insurance companies will add 15 to 30% profit. The IRS doesn't do that.
1 41 00 Chris describes "insurance only billing" He claims that a very large municipality has signed on and is doing it this way, but he won't tell us what municipality that is. He claims this is because they are still in contract negotiations. So, they are doing it with out a contract? Odd.
1 44 09 John Hrubos asks Jason - is the Town of Dryden billing - yes - and they haven't had anybody refusing care "because that would be a very terrible thing" - Jackie Wright answers -" we don't know that" she repeats this several times. She is the president of the Fire Company. Note that John says here that it would be a terrible thing if someone refused service as a result of our going to billing, then the president of the Fire Company infers that that is a possibility, then a few minutes later, John votes in favor of billing. Chris makes it clear that this magnanimous non aggressive billing does not apply to anyone from outside of the district. So, beware you scum bags from Ithaca that dare drive through our district. If you have an accident in our district, we aint gonna be so lenient on you.
1 50 00 Lots of squabbling over how to divide up the loot. (common theme in old Westerns)
2- 0- 0 Marty points out that Ulysses passed a resolution in support of billing, 3 in favor 2 opposed. Then he admits that the makeup of the board is going to be different in January. That's just 3 months away. Here's an idea, ask Roxanne Marino and Kevin Romer how they would vote. They are running unnopposed (except for me on the Green Party line - and I don't intend to campaign against Roxanne) I'm just guessing, but I think it might be 4 to 1 opposed in January, with Dave Kerness being the only one in favor of billing. Ulysses is the largest customer of the EMS, by far. Some on the Village Board appear to be in a hurry to make a decision in November, before the new Ulysses Board is seated on January 1st. Mayor Petrovic does not seem to share this urgency, so there is still hope.
2 04 0 They go around the table getting their "sense of the board" poll (not a resolution) Hart says we are not allowed to bill for fire and police protection (damn!) but we are expected to bill for water and sewer, so we ought to bill for EMS if we can. "I don't see any reason not to" Here's one - few people are afraid of an $800 dollar water bill, and even if they were, that fear wouldn't have life or death consequences.
Hrubos - "I think that the insurance only billing makes this whole thing work" even though the details are really vague.
Notke - "I'm on the fence"..... "I need to look at all the numbers first" ..."Im not completely sold on this"
Thomas - "I've right from the beginning been all about transferring the burden from the taxpayers to the insurance companies where I think it more rightly belongs" Hey Chris, it's not a burden to the insurance companies, it's an opportunity to generate more profit. But nobody seems to be able to penetrate your determined approach to ramming this through.
Petrovic - I'm leaning towards doing this. Sad. He does suggest an early November public meeting.
2 17 20 Chris says that if we go forward we have to make a decision in November. Marty dissagrees.
2 18 30 Public comment period. Me first - I explain for the umpteenth time that this won't save money. You can defer taxes but it will come back as higher premiums. If we assume that when it comes back (plus profit), it will land on a wide segment of society then it's like cheating on your taxes (see above). Then I complain of unanswered questions about the "insurance only billing" and after listening to myself - I failed to connect the dots. I talked about Rod Ferintino's story about going on EMS calls to vehicle accidents where patients would not accept help for fear of a bill. He can now tell them there will be no bill. If we go the "insurance only billing" will Rod be able to tell someone on the scene of an accident, that there will be no bill? This is an unanswered question. Very important. I think I know the answer.
Then I read this,
You are justifying this move to billing by saying that volunteerism is decreasing at the EMS, which results in higher taxes which our community is unwilling to pay. I believe that the average citizen is willing to pay this modest increase which is peanuts compared to our overall tax bill when all taxes are included. The tax for our EMS is the best value that we can buy with our tax dollars. But lets study this decreasing volunteerism that you like to call a "paradigm shift". A paradigm shift is a radical change in people's perception of their world. When we learned that the earth wasn't really flat and that we couldn't sail off of the edge, that forced a paradigm shift on us. If we were suddenly to realize that our own selfish interests should guide how we structure government services, and that concern for the well being of our neighbors was misplaced, and that greed was good, and volunteerism was outmoded, that would be a paradigm shift. The good news, is that this is not happening. A study of figures at the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a slight increase from 07 to 08 in overall volunteerism. At the same time there is a slight decrease in volunteerism in the public safety sector. Why would this be?
All that it would take to deter volunteers, is an understanding that their work would be billed for, and a portion of the proceeds would go to further enrich the CEO's of private for profit health insurance companies, and pay for their lobbyists in Washington. It cannot be denied, that if we go to billing, the insurance companies will add profit, turn the bills around, and bill it right back in the form of premiums. That's just how it works.
I want to help. If you would promise not to go to billing for 3 years, I would join the EMS, and try to persuade others to join. I know that the leaders of the EMS have their own recruitment efforts, but they are being handicapped by this talk of "paradigm shifting" and billing. Promise to layoff for 3 years. I will report to the Board on behalf of the volunteers, and I will turn this trend around. If, at the end of 3 years, I haven't increased volunteerism, you can look at billing again.
If we lose our volunteers, we lose much more than money. These volunteers foster a spirit of concern and cooperation and civic responsibility that is crucial to the proper functioning of our community.
Lastly, it is essential that you hold another public hearing before going to billing. The public told you by a two to one margin that they did not want you to go to billing at last years public hearing. The public does not know what you are doing. It would be profoundly undemocratic for you to go to billing without a public comment period.
2 23 17 Geoffrey Hart - He says that because there is a great variation in the rate of use of the EMS service, that the only fair way to deal with it is a fee for service system. Wouldn't that apply to the Fire and Police services too? Why don't we bill for all of these? Because, over the years we democratically decided that it was in the best interest of society to establish these services, and that it would be unwise to structure these service so that someone didn't call when their house was on fire for fear of a bill. Now, people like Geoffrey are arguing that it is resonable to change our system in such a way that we increase the overall cost to society and at the same time create a fear in some people, that if their body (more valuable than their house) is on fire, they don't call for help for fear of the cost.
2 25 00 Jackie Wright president of the Fire Company. She says that she doesn't think the board has looked at all of the options. also "It's difficult when you go to someone's house and they say they aren't going to go because they will have to pay. It has happened, and Brian knows this, I've gone and I've had people say, because the billing issue has come up in the paper, that they're not going to go. Which is exactly what you don't want to do"
Hello? John, Chris, Rordan? Anybody listening?
2 28 32 Chris says that he'd be happy to come to the meeting on Oct 7 and present the proposal and answer questions, but he's not going to debate the issue. (closed mind?) Jackie says the volunteers want to know what the community wants. Marty says we legally can't have a referendum. Jackie says there are other ways. Chris says not effectively.
How about sending out a questionaire to a the whole district or a random sample. Maybe I should do that. If Chris wrote the questionaire, it would have a whole different flavor. Anybody want to fund a mailing of a couple hundred questionaires?
2 34 30 a discussion of the format of the special village board meeting (public hearing has some legal strings they don't like) I ask if it will be the same format as last years meeting. John Hrubos says "We're not going to go thru people standing up and testifying one way or the other on behalf of the EMS" I ask why not? John "Nobody's denying that the EMS provides a valuable service, that is not the issue what so ever" Well of course it's not John the issue is who pays, which has consequences. And that's what most people talked about last year. You were there. Were you listening? I posted the audio on this blog. check it out.
I said "So last year, they told you by a two to one margin not to do it, and you don't want to have the same format because you're afraid you might get the same answer?"
John said "There's no point in it. What was discussed was not the issue"
Yeah right, not exactly what you wanted to discuss. Let's ignore all the troublesome crap about people not accepting help, and increasing overall cost to society, and volunteers quitting.
Hopefully, the Mayor will decide the format of this meeting.
At the end they go into an executive session (don't know what that's about)
