Review of City EMS Decision

As the City Council prepares to implement the independent EMS system for Georgetown, it seems instructive to examine how we arrived at this point in time.

In late July 2014, the Fire Chief made a presentation to the council justifying the expansion of the Fire Department responsibilities to include transport of patients.  It was asserted that this expansion would be cost neutral to the City by 2017 due to the reimbursement.  The plan included two new ambulances to be staffed by city paramedics and that the plan had been coordinated with Williamson County, current provider of EMS to Georgetown.

It appears that Williamson County was not entirely on-board with Georgetown's proposal and at a City Council workshop on November 11, 2014, they presented their concerns and potential solutions to improving EMS capability within Georgetown.

Because of the disconnect between city and county staff on this issue, Council appointed two Council members, Hesser and Fought, to meet with the County Commissioners to develop a workable arrangement between the City and County with respect to EMS.  After several contentious meetings, no agreement was reached.

Suddenly, without advance public notice, at a City Council workshop on March 24, 2015, the Fire Chief presented his proposal to take over the entire responsibility for EMS in Georgetown and the ETJ(Extra Territorial Jurisdiction).  At the City Council meeting on the same day, the Council approved the Fire Chief's proposal to assume all responsibility for EMS in Georgetown and the ETJ.  This of course requires the purchase of two additional ambulances and six additional paramedics and a process for certifying all of the paramedics to the same standards as Williamson County paramedics.

Following is a table describing the City's rationale and some observations.

City Rationale	Observation
Single organization responsible for police, fire and EMS response	No cost or organizational efficiencies identifiable due to single organization that could not be achieved with a unified call system that would dispatch the appropriate team.
City manager responsible for performance in Georgetown	City manager currently responsible for police and fire, WILCO responsible for all EMS including Georgetown
Georgetown can adapt public services, policies and needs to potential unique needs of Georgetown - different from WILCO?	WILCO has much broader EMS resources and could tailor EMS service to any unique needs for Georgetown
WILCO can adapt public safety services to unique needs of the County	This is faulty reasoning as the County does that now
The City can be reimbursed for transport services with their new ambulances	WILCO loses this reimbursement and still has to fund the same number of EMS staff and ambulances as they redeploy

From public comments made by Williamson County representatives, they were completely blind-sided by Georgetown's decision to eliminate the County as EMS provider in Georgetown. Needless to say, it appears that an unnecessary rift has been opened up between our elected City and County representatives.

It should be noted that this decision by Georgetown also has ramifications for the ESDs(Emergency Service Districts) that surround the city, especially ESD #8. The impacts are unknown at this time, but, will become visible in time as the local boards work their agreements and budgets.

The Georgetown citizens and taxpayers need to engage their city council if they are at all concerned about this process. I am sure suggestions for improvement will be readily accepted. Suggestions on how to improve relations with the county and ESDs are also needed.