WILLIAMS COUNTY EMS LEVY … Pioneer Village Council began their meeting by greeting members of the Williams County EMS Levy Committee.
By: Anna Wozniak
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
The Pioneer Village Council met at 7 p.m. at the Community Center, first greeting the Williams County EMS Levy Committee.
They detailed how beneficial they think their levy would be to the municipalities of Williams County, expressing that this is one of the only counties in Ohio that has yet to fund their EMS services with a levy.
EMS was started in 1979 and has yet to see direct taxpayer funds. Historically, EMS supported itself through transfer profits from transfer requests.
This low amount of funding has resulted in a lack of ambulances for covering Williams County, creating high response times throughout our rural communities.
The ambulances that are currently being sent out of the county to transfer patients so that the Williams County EMS can pay for their operating costs could be used for the handling of local emergency response.
Not only would this levy ensure that response times to these communities will be halved with lifesaving, time sensitive actions being able to be made twice as fast, it also will allow for all county residents to receive no bill for emergency services after insurance.
This is because the levy will serve as county residents “paying” for EMS services, resulting in a “soft billing” process that will see no funds collected from county residents after insurance is invoiced.
If the levy is passed when put on the November ballot, it would be in perpetuity starting January, meaning that it would then be a permanent aspect of Williams County resident’s tax calculations.
Council thanked them for their time before deciding to wait on trading in their maintenance equipment for another year, making this the third year of use for the current equipment.
Assistant Administrator Gina Gruber shared that they are ready for the AMP conference in September, and that Kexon Drive and State Street should be paved within the week.
Bridge inspections were completed on August 1st, and the administration is waiting for the report on that to be submitted.
Residents that have continually been delinquent on their utility bills are seeing shutoffs enforced.
A motion was made approving attendance to the AMP conference, and then council discussed the details surrounding the substation layout for the handling of AquaBounty infrastructure, and another was passed for the approval of the SRO contract between the police department and North Central Local Schools.
The mayor then recommended that the village enter into a contract to pay for education pertaining to electricity so that Jake Turner may acquire the skills necessary to be employed by the village electric department.
Mayor Kidston confirmed that North State Street will be closed for one business day, and that business should resume regularly afterwards.
The Pioneer Village Council then entered into executive session to discuss personnel at 8:17 p.m.
Anna can be reached at anna@thevillagereporter.com