Midway Fire Department hints at bidding for countywide ambulance serice
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Midway Fire Commissioner/ Treasurer Clyde Broome was watching last week's Santa Rosa County Commission meeting live on his computer at home when Commissioner John Broxson of Gulf Breeze said something that launched Broome into a two day intense research project. When the issue of Midway Fire District (MFD) operating two ambulances within their own district was being discussed, Broxson told the Midway Fire Commission Chairman, "You know, Midway Fire is certainly welcome to bid on the contract to provide ambulance services to the entire county."

The immediate response at the podium from Midway Fire Commission Chairman Buck Thackeray was a chuckle, and shake of his head, and saying, "We want to keep this feasible, and that probably would not be very feasible at this time."

But sitting home at his computer, Fire Commissioner Broome wondered what it would take to bid on the whole county's service. He worked for the next day and a half with the fire chief to investigate the possibility, and he presented his research to the rest of the fire commissioners less than 36 hours after County Commissioner Broxson had made that comment.

"We could maintain the district and also operate two ambulances and even make a profit within the first year of ambulance operation," Broome pointed out from his data sheets. "I tried to keep it conservative, and don't know if this entire thesis is right, but it is based on what has happened in the past within the district, as far as ambulance transports. But remember, our main goal is not money - it is better life saving service for our residents."

"I even put together some data to see what it would take to do the whole county." Broome looked at Chairman Thackeray and said with a grin, "You are lookin' at me like I'm crazy."

Thackeray responded, "Well, everybody in Milton already thinks we are crazy, so what would be new."

Broome said taking on the countywide contract would take having seven 24-hour stations throughout the county. It would mean working with volunteer fire departments to station equipped ambulances and have qualified paramedics to do transports. And it would mean a beginning line of credit to start such a service of a million dollars. Fire Chief Stephen Demeter said, "I already talked to our banker today about funding and the credit we would need, and it doesn't look like a big problem. And it could be very lucrative for everyone."

Broome said he took the total number of calls within the last year in the county. His figures are based on only collecting two thirds of what is billed, and collecting most of that no sooner than three months from billing. He had a spread sheet showed a five year plan for MFD transport on a countywide contract.

Fire Commission Chairman Thackeray said, "Hypothetically speaking - and I do mean hypothetically - if we put something together like this for a five year plan, and we get our own two ambulances going and prove to the county we can do that much for a couple years, I can see us hypothetically then going back to the county commission and saying we have an opportunity to unify all the fire departments in the county and offer a countywide ambulance service where we are all working together."

Broome said, "Yes, this could be a plan for later. We may soon have the chance to bid for our own district, and we may also have the chance right now to bid for the whole county. If neither of those options work out, then at the very least we can try to work out a partnership with whoever gets the bid for the county, and maybe have an ambulance or two of our own in the district, and have them throw us $500 per run we make. But that is all something we can work out down the road, after we see what the county does."

Demeter said, "The advantage we have over private companies bidding is we can walk in with a fee proposal for the county because we don't have to feed stockholders. We don't need to make a profit. We just want to improve response time and life saving services. All our ambulances would be equipped with the same state of the art equipment our paramedics rescue trucks have now."

Demeter added that a disadvantage they would have in winning the countywide bid was Midway had not run an ambulance service before.

"We just have not been doing transports, that's all," he said.

Gorris suggested the commissioners set a date for a workshop in February so they could take a closer look at all this and see if it is feasible to bid on the countywide service and how to possibly prepare for both bids. The date of the first Tuesday in February was set for a public workshop meeting.