Lifeguard wins ambulance bid
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Pam Brannon/Gulf Breeze News Lifeguard ambulance service owner John Roche (left) and General Manager Chris Rucker presented a winning proposal to the county commission last week.

Lifeguard Transportation Services, Inc. was chosen last week as the new ambulance provider for the next five years for Santa Rosa County. The ambulance company serves six states, is owned by a Gulf Breeze couple, and has its air and ground operations headquarters in Pensacola. It did promise, however, to move its ground ambulance headquarters to Santa Rosa County.

Three private ambulance companies and a fire department presented their proposals on how they would handle a countywide ambulance contract to the Santa Rosa County Commissioners last week. Each bidder on the five-year contract was given an hour for their presentation, then another 30 minutes to answer questions from commissioners.

Some of the elements of the four bidders' proposals were the same, such as each of the four would have ambulances with Automatic Vehicle Location devices that can tell the home base exactly where any ambulance is at any time

Some questions were the same for each of the four bidders, such as how much they had projected to collect from ambulance calls the first year of their contract. Each answered that they expect to collect in the neighborhood of $4-million the first year, with that being only about 50 percent of what they will bill since much is never collected in that business.

Lifeguard

Lifeguard Transportation Services, Inc. owners John and Debra Roche of Gulf Breeze brought several staff to answer questions. Lifeguard was founded in 1982 in Florida, now serves six states. They operate both ground and air fixed wing ambulance services. Their General Manager Chris Rucker gave the presentation, and he knows County Commissioners from several years of working within the county for a previous ambulance provider.

They offered:

§ 9 ambulances and 4 paramedic Rapid Response vehicles

§ Work with Midway Fire, and any other qualified agency, to place ambulances at fire stations with fire paramedics as crews, and pay them a per-run fee for runs handled.

Re-locate company headquarters to Santa Rosa County, with local customer service office.

Keep some of the current ambulance provider's staff

Will place Santa Rosa County logos on ambulances

Will spend $11,000 annually for Community Relations program

Lifeguard also presented letters of support from all the area hospitals.

"I want to express to you all how much it would mean to me to win this contract," John Roche told commissioners. "I grew up in Santa Rosa County, went to school in Santa Rosa County, started my EMS career here, and now make my home in Gulf Breeze. I would love to bring our EMS services to Santa Rosa County."

Midway Fire

Midway Fire District, which is between Navarre and Gulf Breeze City, was first to present their proposal. They offered:

18 new EMTs to be hired (with EMT pay $26,000- $30,000 a year + benefits)

18 new paramedics to be hired (with paramedic pay at $32,000 - $34,000 a year + benefits)

3 new EMS supervisors to be hired, with a 24-hour/7 day a week supervisor working countywide

8 ambulances stationed throughout county, NOT roaming (4 in north/ 4 in south)

50 percent of profits to go to countywide fire departments to provide improved First Response

50 percent of profits to go back into ambulance system, including additional ambulances, etc

Commissioner Don Salter of Pace asked Midway Fire Chief Stephen Demeter why Midway Fire would want to go into the ambulance business. Demeter said, "Personally, I would like to handle only ambulances for the Midway area. But we are willing to improve the entire county's system if that is the only way we can improve service for our own people."

Demeter said they had tried to obtain a certificate of operation from the county commissioners for Midway to handle ambulance service only to its own district, but their request had been rejected.

Commissioner Salter said, "When we fill a position from the top down, as we are doing here, we want to see one thing all the way down - experience, experience, experience. We need someone who has experience in running an ambulance service."

Salter and Commissioner Gordon Goodin of Navarre questioned whether Midway taxpayers would be happy about having to subsidize an ambulance system the first year or two just so the rest of the county could get quality services.

Commissioner John Broxson of Gulf Breeze said, "This whole thing started when you wanted to have ambulances at your own fire house, and now this whole thing got stirred up because we wanted to see if we could indeed do better in providing ambulance services to the whole county. You started the ball rolling. Midway has the reputation of being one of the finest fire districts in the state. I have even checked with your detractors, and they all admit - your department is very good at what you do. I am a taxpayer in your district and I do not mind paying the higher tax amount because you do a great job. You are leading the way to many new things in Santa Rosa County that will make many services better."

American Medical Response

American Medical Response is the largest ambulance company in the nation. They offered a joint bid proposal with Midway Fire, explaining that AMR would be the contractor with the county, and Midway would only have two ambulances to service their own area - as a sub-contractor to AMR.

AMR works in 10 Florida counties, as well as running 4100 emergency vehicles nationwide, which serve 250 municipalities. They also have an air ambulance fixed wing fleet.

They offered:

8 roaming ambulances at peak periods, with 6 ambulances countywide for off-peak

Will hire qualified employees from current provider when that service leaves

They would allow Midway to operate/staff 2 ambulances from their 2 fire stations and pay Midway a $300 per-run fee.

CARE

CARE ambulance service is headquartered in Alabama, and operates in that state and in Georgia. This would be the first Florida contract. They handle ambulance service for 13 counties. They ranked last among commissioners. Commissioners rank Lifeguard #1

The Santa Rosa County Commissioners did a 'ranking' of ambulance bidders at their regular monthly meeting last week.

At the beginning of their meeting, Commissioners said they were not ready to vote to award the bid, but wanted to see after the first presentations what other commissioners thought were the strongest bidders. But once all commissioners had ranked Lifeguard #1, they decided to go ahead and have county staff work with Lifeguard on a contract.

They each gave a 1 to 4 rating, with 1 being the strongest bidder, and then added all the scores. The bidders with the lowest scores were considered 'top' bidders.

All five of the County Commissioners rated Lifeguard ambulance as their #1 pick, followed by AMR as a distant #2, and Midway Fire one point behind AMR in the ratings.

Two of the commissioners had actually placed Midway Fire as their second choice. CARE came in last among the commissioners.