After a 4-1 vote with only Commissioner Oren Miller against, Sumter County board members favored County Administrator Bradley Arnold’s proposal to repeal AMR’s 911 communication center contract at the end of September.
Arnold had previously suggested that future 911 staff become county-operated with locals hired as employees. He told commissioners during a recent meeting at Everglades Regional Recreation Complex that the AMR officials agreed with his proposal.
Unfortunately, Miller had no support among colleagues to push the move.
“There is a lot of material here. I think this needs to go to a board of county commissioners’ workshop,” Miller said in desiring to further discuss the changes.
Consequently, the county will now discontinue its annual subsidy to AMR, which was $1.26 million, once the contract dissolves.
American Medical Response has a contract with Sumter County to provide its daily ambulance service. If looked into AMR response times, stipulated ambulances had to respond to calls inside the city limit within seven minutes 59 seconds of a call. The response time was just under 17 minutes for rural emergencies.
This decision included some stipulations not associated with 911, such as an obligation that AMR will operate no more than 30% of basic life support ambulances compared to advanced life support vehicles with more advanced trained paramedics onboard.
The approved revisions also allows AMR an additional five-minute cushion in responding to emergency medical calls in case firefighters are available on the scene to provide aid.
AMR’s ambulance response times provoked the commission to bring about this change and form a citizen ad hoc committee to look into what Chairman Garry Breeden directed to find “the best solution for patient outcome.” With just 10 options to consider within the county, five of them didn’t include The Villages Public Safety Department.
Last week, Chief Edmund Cain proposed to the committee that the Village Center Community Development District could side-off from the county EMS system. He proposed to create an independent special district to focus separately on firefighting as well as EMS in The Villages, including areas outside of Sumter County.
Commissioners unanimously agreed with Breeden’s directive, maintaining that an independent district should be brought directly in front of the commission and not the citizen committee.
County Attorney Jennifer Rey said that the citizen committee has consulted her regarding details of the proposal.
“I think they need to stay the course,” Breeden said of focusing on patients, not who runs fire departments.