Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana

Town weighing ambulance options

The Town of Whitehall is currently exploring options to keep its ambulance service.

According to Town Attorney Edward Guza, the Whitehall Ambulance Service is currently not taking calls as they are trying to figure out how to keep the service going in their current environment that he said is limited by rotations and limitations.

Guza said keeping the service that is operated with an enterprise fund is not the easiest thing to do. He said as a government body you have certain requirements, and there is a lot more flexibility in how a private industry does business.

Guza was steadfast in the notion the Town of Whitehall is trying keep Whitehall Ambulance afloat in a way that does not create a tax liability or monthly charge for residents.

“We don’t want to do anything like that,” he said. “We are struggling with a way to keep a service that I feel is very necessary in a community that is somewhat isolated.”

Guza told the Ledger that when the former Town of Whitehall Ambulance crew members walked out last year, the town inherited a mess. He said the town has tried to do its best to put a new crew in place, but what is going on is that Jefferson Valley EMS and Rescue has worked its way into the County rotation and in affect choked off the Whitehall Ambulance Service with a limited service area.

Guza said the future of the service may ultimately depend on the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office giving them back their service area.

Guza stated he and fellow Town Attorney Matthew Haus drove to Boulder to meet with Jefferson County Attorney Steve Haddon and Sheriff Craig Doolittle to ask why they can’t have their service area back. He said they never got a good response why. Guza believes that government agencies should work with each other and that the private sector can be here today and gone tomorrow. He said the Town of Whitehall never agreed to the creation of rotations and limitations that went into affect when the former crew walked out the door, “literally leaving Whitehall Ambulance in shambles”. He said Haus wrote letters to Sheriff Doolittle stating they are slowly killing Whitehall Ambulance under the system they’ve created.

“There’s nothing more we can do. We can’t force the Sheriff’s Department and dispatch to put things how they once were,” Guza said.

In the meantime, Guza said they just don’t have the resources to continue as an enterprise fund that stays out of the red by the money it brings in. He said they have been talking about this in executive meetings, trying to figure out what they can do as a town. He said that Whitehall Ambulance has in the past received money from donations, but never from taxpayers.

He said they have talked with current Whitehall Ambulance Director Tyler Steinebach about coming up with a way to have him keep the service going for the town until they try to come up with more long-term plans.

“It’s really sad. We feel the town has been railroaded and lost a service I feel is vital to its citizens. In the meantime we don’t have the funding to continue this in its present state,” he said.

 

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