Ambulance service will continue

Dispute on funding continues

MORRIS >> A disagreement about who is responsible to pay for daytime ambulance service — the Morris Volunteer Fire Department or the town of Morris — is still in play, but the town has reached an agreement with the provider.

The Morris Volunteer Fire Department says it has reached an agreement to continue the contracted provision of daytime ambulance services in the community on Friday, according to posts on both the town and department Facebook pages. Almost simultaneously, the Board of Selectmen voted on a new agreement with VinTech, the Torrington-based company that has provided ambulance services from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. since July 2015, Friday morning, according to First Selectman

Tom Weik.

In the motion made by the selectmen, Weik said, the fire department was offered two choices — pay VinTech to continue the current agreement between the two parties, which had previously been set to expire March 20, or drop their exclusive rights to provide these services.

Town officials wrote in a Facebook post Friday that the fire department “chose our first option, to continue their contract with VinTech for professional, daytime EMS coverage and pay the bill for the remainder of the fiscal year with the Revenue Recovery monies they have been holding in absence of a Revenue Recovery Agreement with the Town.”

The post continues, “We are glad the Fire Department has taken this action as it is the best option for the Town of Morris and the well-being of our residents and the people passing through.”

Members of the fire department say they were told by the state Office of Emergency Management Services that the Board of Selectmen cannot contract out for EMS services because the department holds the right to do so — known as a PSA, or primary service area — and thus it “acted quickly to establish an agreement for Vintech to continue providing staffing on a month-to month basis, until such time when a resolution can be reached between the Town and fire department on the issues.”

Morris VFD President Kevin DeRoehn did not respond immediately to an email seeking clarification on the terms of this agreement.

Town officials and representatives of the fire department have been at odds over the future of the provision of ambulance service in town since May 2016, when a contract governing revenue drawn in by the fire department for providing such services, known as a “revenue recovery agreement,” expired.

Since 1999, the town has provided the money for the Morris Volunteer Fire Department on an annual basis to contract out ambulance services during the daytime hours, which it decided to do in that year because of a lack of volunteers.

The fire department would then bill the recipients of ambulance services and collect the proceeds in a revenue recovery account, which would be turned over to the town, minus $3,000 and operating fees, twice a year in January and July. The contract governing that revenue recovery account expired in May.

Weik and members of the fire department met to discuss a new contract on Wednesday during a special meeting with the Board of Selectmen. But the discussion was halted, in large part, by a dispute over the previous agreement.

The fire department, Deputy Chief Ken Cast said Wednesday, wants a statement that it acted in accordance with all the tenants of the previous agreement, while DeRoehn said that the department asked for a determination on whether it had been in compliance.

“What we asked for was a public and written statement from an official of the town stating that the fire department has met all the obligations under the settlement agreement,” said Cast.

Weik said this cannot be determined without “a three-year look back” on the department, which cannot be completed without an audit from King, King & Associates.

This audit, he said, requires further records, while DeRoehn said Wednesday that King, King and Associates has received the records.

“King & King, I gave them what they asked me for,” said DeRoehn. “If they requested the files, I don’t believe it would be a problem giving them to them.”

DeRoehn said Wednesday that members of the fire department voted not to enter into negotiations over a new agreement until this determination had been made.

Cast said that the records between January and May of 2016 had not been supplied, and a check had not been written.

DeRoehn said that he would contact members to gauge their willingness to enter into face-to-face negotiations without such a statement, and that the department would be willing to meet its obligation if an audit determined that it did not do so under the current contract.

Both Weik and DeRoehn said Wednesday that attorneys representing both sides have discussed a new contract in recent months.

Whether the department complied with the agreement is in dispute.

Members of the fire department said Wednesday that they are not obligated to make another payment that would have been supplied to the town if the agreement had continued — some $60,000 — since the contract expired in May, but under the language included in it, the payment would have been sent to the treasurer in July.

“The agreement was dated for ten years started in May,” said Cast. “The last January or July that rolled around before it expired, was when you got the payment.”

Weik disagreed Wednesday, saying that the contract covered the period through May.

Neither side put forward a proposal Wednesday, although both voiced expectations that the other side would do so.

Weik said Wednesday that he would like the revenue recovery agreement to be roughly the same moving forward.

DeRoehn declined to discuss what the fire department wanted, although Cast noted that it would be best to have a portion of the revenue in the account, since the volunteers man the ambulance in the evening and early morning hours.

“The fire department’s a small thing. We’re out there working, we’re generating as much money as we can,” said Cast. “And then the town just says ‘give it all to us, and we’ll figure out what’s best for you with it.’”

The last payment from the fire department, according to documentation from DeRoehn, was supplied in January 2016.

The Board of Finance moved $60,000 from the 2016-17 fire department budget into a contingency fund in September, as this dispute continued.

A line item for $60,000 in expected revenue from the department was created, according to Board of Finance member Tracy Martin, as part of the budget. Approximately $19,000 has been received so far, meaning that the line item is in deficit.

Weik said previously that this funding would be made available to the fire department once a new revenue recovery agreement was reached, while department members say that this diminishment of funding means that the bill would not be paid.

“Board of Finance officials previously transferred $60,000 out of the MVFD account to Contingency, making the funds unavailable to the fire department,” wrote department members in Friday’s Facebook post. “Without those funds, it would be nearly impossible to pay the Vintech bill. As a result, the MVFD had no choice but to cancel the contract and inform Selectmen of the situation.”

The town and fire department previously debated the use of these funds in 2005 after the previous fire chief purchased a truck with the funding, which prompted the creation of the 2006 revenue recovery agreement. No legal contract existed before that.

“That’s a settlement to prevent a lawsuit,” said Cast. “That was designed to stymie a lawsuit that was pending or threatened. We want a new agreement to come out. We want it to be mutually acceptable to both parties. We don’t want anybody to feel compelled to ‘sign it or else’ — and every conversation we have is an ‘or else.’”

Cast said the department was amenable to other arrangements for ambulance service beyond the current one.

DeRoehn and Cast said Wednesday they were concerned that, if the department put forward funds to pay the VinTech bill, the town could seek restitution after finding, through an audit, that the department did not meet its obligations under the contract.