Members of the Mad River Valley Ambulance Service board met with select boards from Warren, Waitsfield, Fayston and Moretown this month to discuss the volunteer ambulance service’s capital expenditures now and in the future.
Board treasurer and MRVAS EMT Mark Giometti and board president Sheila Ware met with the Waitsfield and Warren boards this week and previously met with the Fayston and Moretown Select Boards.
In each town, they are presenting a slide deck showing MRVAS’s history, services, and finances, including its cash flows and capital expenditures for the past decade, as well as capital expenditure projections for the next decade.
DAILY OPERATIONS
Giometti said that in terms of daily operations of the service, the finances look great.
“We are solid in terms of our daily operations, and we may even generate a small surplus each year from operations. Where we’re going to see a gap in the coming years – and where we have before – is in our capital expenditures,” he said.
The slides they presented to the boards show major capital expenditures since 2017, including a new ambulance in 2017, 15 monitors that same year, a new ambulance in 2019, rescue rig conversion in 2020 and a new ambulance in 2022. They also detailed how net operating revenues and expenses had changed from 2014-2023.
Projected out over the coming decade, MRVAS projections show a deficit of $400,000 between required reserves for capital expenditures and available resources. Previously, the service has had sufficient revenues from its regular operations to be able to set aside for least some funding for capital expenditures.
CAPITAL EQUIPMENT
The slides show that the funding gap has been exacerbated by increasing costs of capital equipment, medical supplies, and medications – obviously some of those expenses are part of daily operating costs. Other issues have to do with limited ability to raise operating revenue due to lagging Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, new protocols that increase standard of care costs without offsetting revenue sources and an increasing percentage of ‘no-transport’ calls.
Ultimately, MRVAS is looking for an annual contribution from Warren, Waitsfield, Fayston and Warren that is based on each town’s share of the population in its service area. To close the 10-year funding gap of $400,000, MRVAS is seeking annual contributions from each town as follows.
- Fayston/North Fayston $9,000
- Moretown $6,000
- Waitsfield $13,000
- Warren $14,000
UNANIMOUSLY POSITIVE
“The reception was unanimously positive. Warren was very glad to be brought into the discussion now while the town is budgeting rather than in November. The towns have also been receptive to the honesty and candor. We want to be able to share the positive and negative things that are coming in the future,” Giometti said.
He noted that MRVAS asked member towns to help fund the last ambulance purchased, with each town contributing $15,000 for three years. Waitsfield, he said, just kept a $15,000 line item in its budget for MRVAS, which he said was much appreciated, but said he told the board this week that their share would be $13,000 going forward for the next decade.
