File photo
Pictured is the sport utility vehicle used by Chautauqua County for its fly car program to provide emergency medical services.
Chautauqua County’s fly-car program, which supplements volunteer fire departments, continues to run in the red.
During the legislature’s Audit and Control Committee meeting, Budget Director Jennifer Swanson reported that the fly-car program is running at a $650,000 deficit due to expense overruns.
In the summer of 2017, Chautauqua County started its first fly car system, which are non-transporting emergency medical service vehicles that respond to and provide emergency medical services without the ability to transport patients. It has helped supplement volunteer fire departments who don’t have enough Emergency Medical Technicians to respond to each call.
After Swanson gave the report, Legislator Dan Pavlock, R-Ellington, expressed concerns, saying that he doesn’t think there’s been a year the fly car program has stayed in its budget.
Originally county officials were told the program would fund itself through medical billing, but that hasn’t been the case.
Legislature Chairman Pierre Chagnon, R-Ellery, agreed with Pavlock and said he is working on addressing this issue for the next budget.
“I have had numerous meetings with emergency services staff over the last couple of months dissecting the 2024 budget in preparation for the 2025 budget,” he said.
Chagnon said they have discovered “several miscalculations” in terms of reimbursement rates per insurance providers, including Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance.
He said there was also a large error in projecting how many of the ambulance services would be funded by which insurance provider.
“What is reimbursed by Medicaid is substantially different than what is reimbursed by private insurers,” he noted.
After looking at this year’s fly car budget, Chagnon believes they will be able to create a much more realistic budget for next year.
“I’m going to predict that what we see in the 2025 budget is going to be much more accurate. I’m also going to predict that it’s going to be substantially more local share because it will be correct,” he said.
Chagnon said he believes the ambulance transfer program covers its costs and maybe even makes a little money. By comparison, the fly car program requires more county tax dollars to fund.
County Executive PJ Wendel is expected to present his proposed 2025 budget to the full legislature on Sept. 25.
OTHER ACCOUNTS
The fly car program wasn’t the only item that Swanson noted in her report that was discussed at length.
Other notable mentions by Swanson include that the safety net program is up about $1.5 million and uncollected property taxes is at $3 million. They have been turned over to collections. The county is $400,000 under budget for road salt and $385,000 under budget for conflict administration. The county also has about $3 million in vacancy savings.
Including the fly car and the previously mentioned expenses, Swanson said they are looking at about a $1,365,000 deficit by the end of the year.
County Finance Director Kitty Crow said that for sales tax, she believes they will meet their budget but not have any surplus above and beyond what they expected.
Crow said should the county end the year with a $1.5 million to $3 million deficit, the county will still nearly have 15% of fund balance available.
“My main point would be that it (a deficit) would be something we could weather, but of course we’re going to do what we can to mitigate that impact to the fund balance,” she said.