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�,�� OFFICE OF WELD COUNTY CLERK AND RECORDER
' DEPARTMENT OF CLERK TO BOARD
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PHONE (303) 3564000 EXT. 223
aP.O. BOX 459
G REELE V, COLORADO 80631 COLORADO
RE: SPECIAL AMBULANCE TAXING DISTRICT HEARING
FREDERICK, COLORADO
EXCERPT, April 20, 1983
STATE OF COLORADO)
COUNTY OF WELD )
I, Mary Ann Feuerstein, County Clerk and
Ex-officio Clerk of the Board of County Commissioners in
and for the County of Weld, State of Colorado, do hereby
certify that the attached documents have been transcribed
from the tape recording regarding the Special Ambulance
Taxing District hearing held in Frederick from the records
of the Board of County Commissioners of said Weld County,
now in my office.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my
hand and affixed the seal of said County, at Greeley,
Colorado this 2nd day of May , A.D. , 1983 .
I `2
COUNTY,;CLERK
BY: 0' (L t . %6h/�
1/4
--DEPUTY COUNTY CLERK
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830974
4
HEARING TO DISCUSS PROPOSED SPECIAL AMBULANCE TAXING DISTRICT
CONDUCTED IN FREDERICK, COLORADO
DATE: APRIL 21, 1983
7 : 00 P.M.
TAPE #83-31
EXCERPT OF COMMENTS MADE BY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON
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COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: . . . I became a commissioner on
the third of January, and on the fourth I was informed that I was
chairman of this Ad Hoc Committe, so I , I think it' s fair to say
that I came to the job without a lot of preconceived notions. I ,
I didn' t really have time to have any preconceived notions about
what was or was not the right way to go.
The input from the committee was as, as Don has related,
pretty strong in a couple of areas. Number one, that we wanted,
the people participating in the Ad Hoc Committe, wanted the
ambulance services that the county is providing. They felt that
they were necessary and important services . And I guess I would
concur with that and, and add that I think we have a particularly
fine emergency service in this county. It' s something that is
somewhat unique to this county as being a county service.
Another thing we heard loud and clear was that the Air Life
was an important part of those emergency medical services, not
just for people who are outside of the Greeley area, but when we
started looking at the statistics we found that a lot of the people
that were transported by the helicopter were in fact Greeley resi-
dents who were injured away from the city and made use of that.
Ah, certainly in an area such as this, whether it' s Air Life or
Flight for Life, the helicopter has , has proven to be something
that people feel is necessary service.
The third thing that I think became very apparent to me,
right away, was that the cost of, of providing this service was,
was increasing. It was an expensive service and one that was
difficult for many people, particularly people who used it
heavily, to be able to afford.
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Ah, those were all things that we took into consideration
when we proposed this district. I think Don has outlined the,
the details of the district pretty well. Maybe one of the things
that we, we need to pay a little bit of attention to is the
current method of financing the ambulance district. Ah, part of
the financing, well a, a good percentage of the financing, already
comes from county taxes . Your tax dollars are in fact paying for
a, a good percent of the ambulance service. The county picks up,
ah, in the neighborhood I think now of about $105 , 000 to cover
the bad debt of county ambulance, ah, use. The City of Greeley,
ah, is anywhere from 30 to 70, 000, I believe. And I believe Ft.
Lupton has also picked up a share of that.
I guess what we were looking at is that as the cost of ser-
vice increases it would seem to me to make sense that also what
would increase would be the, ah, the expense of the bad debt. If
the bad debt gets more and more expensive, fewer people are going
to be able to pay that bill. So we were trying to look at a way
to equalize that, ah, and to make it more affordable to people,
and thereby reduce the bad debt.
I think we would be fooling ourselves to say that this way
the taxpayers pay for it. The way we' re proposing, and the way it
is now, the taxpayers do not pay for it because in fact we're
all paying for it, and will continue to. So I think one of the
underlying concerns that we had was to look down the future, try
and make the financing of the ambulance district a more stable
thing, and perhaps equalize the cost of doing that.
I think the, the analogy to an insurance policy is not a
bad one. Ah, I know in my own case with health insurance, ah,
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I buy health insurance. I don' t like paying that premium every
month. It seems like a lot, but also know that if I have to go
to the hospital it' s going to be a great comfort to me to know
that I don' t have the full amount of that hospital bill to pay
because of the insurance that I carry and I, I guess in, in a simi-
lar sense that, that we're doing that same kind of thing with
this proposal. For my eight, or whatever number of dollars a
year, I am guaranteeing that I will only have to pick up forty
percent of that ambulance cost should I need it, and I hope to
goodness that I or my family don' t, but it' s there if I , if I
do and I want it to be real good if I do.
There' s one area that I ' d like to just address with regard
to the helicopter. There have been some, ah, statements made
that the county is doing this to bail out the helicopter and I
think it ought to be made clear that, at least as I perceive it,
that is not at all our intent. Ah, I think that the helicopter
has to make it on its own. It' s the hospital' s project and they
have to utilize it in a way to make it make money if it' s to be
successful for them. What our purpose was, was that the heli-
copter is something that is reagrded by people who live in our
county as being a useful service and one that they want to have ,
and we just don' t want it to be unaffordable to those people who
need it. So to the extent that a person needs it for a medical
emergency, through this district we would be guaranteeing that it
would be more affordable to those who need it. It is in, I think,
in no way an effort to, to do any more than that. I guess maybe
if that, with that, Chuck, I ' ll, I ' ll hold off until there' s
some questions or some comments.
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