OCEAN CITY — Frustration with the growing financial strain of providing emergency services to West Ocean City at Ocean City taxpayers’ expense boiled to the surface again during a Thursday budget work session and ended with resort officials considering an ultimatum to Worcester County.
During the budget work session related to the town’s fire and EMS divisions, the issue of Ocean City providing ambulance service to West Ocean City and ended with more questions than answers.
The grants Worcester County pays to Ocean City for providing the service outside city limits fall short of compensating the resort. The result is a roughly $400,000-plus deficit that resort officials have must fund or seek an equitable means of being compensated by county, either through more stringent collection efforts or an increase in grants.
For the purposes of Thursday’s budget discussions, the decision was whether to include the roughly $400,000 cost of providing service to West Ocean City in the fiscal year 2021 budget, or finding a better way of making sure the town is compensated. In either case, Councilman Mark Paddack said the issue had to be resolved.
“Ocean City taxpayers are paying for fire and EMS service in West Ocean City, but aren’t being fully compensated,” he said. “It’s wrong and it needs to be addressed.”
Councilman John Gehrig said the town should set the price for providing ambulance service to West Ocean City and should be compensated, either by the individual users, their insurance companies, Medicaid or from the county. In either case, the town had to be compensated.
“We’re talking about a deficit in West Ocean City,” he said. “We shouldn’t have a deficit because we set the price. This isn’t a city versus county problem, it’s a collections problem. I’m thinking of this as a business. I don’t care about the government side of this. We provide a service and we should get paid.”
Gehrig utilized a basic business principle to illustrate how the town should be paid for providing the service, suggesting an upfront collection system akin to a simple business transaction.
“We have to be like Taco Bell,” he said. “If you go in there and get three tacos and a Pepsi, you pay before you leave the building.”
Councilman Tony DeLuca agreed, but said the discussion was likely more appropriate in a different forum then budget deliberations.
“We provide a service, but we don’t get paid,” he said. “I think we need to take this to a work session. I don’t think it’s a discussion right now for the budget. We need to find a solution.”
Mayor Rick Meehan said he believed it should be put in the budget to illustrate to the county that Ocean City is serious about collecting what it is owed.
“I think we should put it in the budget,” he said. “We put it in there because it’s the right thing to do. If the county doesn’t acquiesce, it’s on them.”
Budget Manager Jennie Knapp reminded the Mayor and Council simply including the roughly $400,000 request doesn’t mean it will be paid.
“If I put it in the budget and we don’t get it, it will have to be reconciled in the budget,” she said. “It would have to be made up somewhere to balance the budget, and it would probably have to come from fund balance.”
Meehan said recent history suggests if the request is not included in the budget, the county, and presumably the users of the service, will continue to not compensate the town.
“If we don’t put in what we’ve requested, we don’t get it,” he said. “It’s plain and simple. Unless we continue to be persistent, that’s on the county.”
For his part, Gehrig continued to focus on the end user paying for the service simply by paying what is owed to the town for providing it.
“This is a business,” he said. “If they make a call and get service, they have to pay the bill. It’s that simple. We’re not trying to be cold-hearted. That’s just the way it is.”
Paddack agreed it could be a collection issue.
“This is not a case where we’re trying to be mean-spirited,” he said. “We’re coming up with a shortfall of $400,000 to $500,000. Either people aren’t paying it or the county isn’t paying it. Either way, our taxpayers are footing the bill.”
There have been discussions of reworking the county’s fire districts to help fund the ambulance service in areas of the county at-large, areas in which the municipalities are footing the bill. Earlier this year, Meehan and the mayors of the other municipalities addressed the issue with the county although no firm action has been taken. Under that concept, residents in at-large areas of Worcester such as West Ocean City could pay a special assessment attached to their tax bill to help support the cost of the service. Paddack said he supported that concept.
“I like the idea of creating fire districts with an assessment to pay for fire and EMS service all over the county,” he said. “It’s totally wrong our constituents are paying to provide service to West Ocean City.”
Gehrig reiterated residents in the at-large areas make a 911 call and receive service without understanding someone is footing the bill. It’s a fair expectation to call 911 and expect service and that should not change, but there is a cost associated with that.
“I think people think the service is free,” he said. “The bottom line is if people think the service is free, they’re going to keep using it. If they know it’s not free, maybe they use the service differently. It seems like a collection problem.”
City Manager Doug Miller suggested perhaps finding a level of funding the town is comfortable with and continuing to provide service to the at-large areas of the county until that level of funding is exhausted.
“One option is to keep it as it is and tell the county whatever we put in is the level of service we’ll provide,” he said. “When we go beyond that level of funding, we no longer provide the service.”
That option was the preferred option for the majority of the council. A straw poll of the councilmembers suggested that could be the route to pursue although no formal motion was made and no formal vote was taken. The issue of whether or not to include the roughly $400,000 shortfall in the budget will likely be decided during budget wrap-up sessions set for Friday.