Emergency Medical Service District 2 Board Meeting

0:00 >> Good afternoon and welcome calling to order EMS district 2 board meeting Monday, March 9th, 2026. We'll start with the roll call. >> Overhoser. Overhoser. >> Present. >> Belcott. Belcott. >> Present. >> Thornberry. >> You're on mute.

0:44 Dean, can you try star 6 to unmute yourself? >> This is the private citizen Kimberly. Thank you. >> There will be public comment later in the agenda. >> I don't see Merna online yet. >> All right.

1:43 There's a quorum. We'll move forward. Our first action item is approval of the minutes March 9th, 2026. Is there a motion or any corrections? >> Move to approve the minutes for March 9th. >> Thank you. >> I second. >> Moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Motion carries. Okay. Update and discussion items board composition change and Deanne, I see you're coming right up. So you'll give us an overview next steps and EMS interlocal cooperation agreement amendment. So we're all ears. >> Thank you. Deanne Cordes, contract administrator. As you know, the board composition changed as of January 12th, 2026. That's when the board approved to add two additional board members.

2:42 With that change, there was an unknown unintended consequence. Not necessarily a bad thing, but because the county council is no longer the majority, it changes how the financial statements are done. And that's how they're prepared. So the Clark County auditor's office reached out and just said now the board is going to have to arrange to have those statements done on their own. And then also we'll need to pay for some county services that are being provided currently with legal contract administration. We do some payments through our workday system, things like that. So I have reached out to them and I asked what those costs would be and I have not heard back. As far as the financial statement preparation, we have a few different options, and this only affects 2026. So it doesn't affect 2025.

3:38 They're still preparing them the same way they have previously. So there's a few options as far as preparation. The internal auditors do that, or excuse me, our auditor's office do that for other agencies for a fee, or we can go through an outside CPA firm to prepare those. So as I'm collecting more information, I'll bring that back to the board for the board's decision. Okay. Are there any questions from counselors? What I think would be good is to understand all of our expenses for the year because there's the audit and now there's the budget preparation information that we'll be paying for. And I know we have a balance, I'm not offhand sure what that balance is, but it'd be good to have some sort of statement because our next meeting will be July? Correct.

4:37 In July. Yep. So we can take a look at it then. And part of also this change now with the county council not having majority, we'd also like to bring, currently the county's budget process is running the budget, we'd like to bring that back to EMS District 2 and have the board run their own budget process. So with that, this kind of rolls into my next steps as well as item C, the inner local cooperation amendment. So the ILA currently talks about running it through the county's budget process. So I have drafted a draft amendment that pulls that language out. And we would need to take that back to the county and the four cities for their approval as well as the EMS 2 board. So that's a next item we can discuss just how that inner local amendment looks as well. Okay. Next by you mean the next thing on the agenda?

5:36 It's 1C is what it is. Yes. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. From the board? No questions at this time. So I think we're ready to, so are we on B now? So for B, the next steps would be mending that inner local. And then also, and this is item two, but talking about what that budget process looks like for EMS 2. Since we don't currently have one, we're using the county's process, I'd like to have some discussion and again, we can do that on number two, item number two on what the language and the process looks like. So those are the next steps. Are there any questions, well, excuse me, backup, and then also figuring out how we're going to do our financial statements for 2026 and beyond, but I do need to investigate some information and bring that back to the board. Okay.

6:35 That sounds good. Yes. Councilor Belcott. All right, Diane, I'm seeing the, let's see, ask that the county would be willing to prepare the EMS financial statement for a fee. Do you have any idea what the fee would be, like what that looks like? Not yet. I have asked, I haven't received anything back. I did do a little investigating on a CPA firm that does do statements for some other departments and it runs about $250 an hour. So that's a ballpark. I don't know that it would cut the county if they were to, if we were able to use the county that it would cost us that much. Okay. All right. And I'm familiar, because I'm just reading this, will be audited by the state auditor's office and I was on the auditing a couple of years ago, so I'm familiar with how they work and how that process works and what they do. Okay. All right. That's it for me. Thank you. Okay. Thanks for that question.

7:35 Thank you. One of our board members just arrived, we're in France. So welcome. Yeah. We've just talked about the board composition change overview and some next steps. So we don't have specific numbers, Deanne will be researching that. And would that be a portion of your time? Is that also being allocated to EMS District 2 to cover the cost of that? That's kind of a second piece that the auditor had talked about. So the financial statements would be one piece and then also my time, our legal's time, we have some financial people that help us.

8:30 So all of that would be a different cost, so I've asked for that information as well. So my hope is I can bring back a lot more information in July on costs and then also I'll be prepared to let you know all the expenses for the year, the fund balance and all of that information. Right. And it might be good to anticipate future years and if expenses are going to likely go up or stay level and where we find the resources to pay for them. Yes, exactly. So I'll have, I do have a six year forecast put together. Great. And again, those are only the known costs that we knew with the current year costs. So again, I'll plug in all the extras and bring that forward in July. Good. So we're still learning as we go. So that's great. Thank you, Deanne. Any questions from the board? Okay.

9:30 There you go. Hi. This is Myrna Leja. I apologize for being late. My questions all had to do with what the financing would be, so I think I missed part of that. So I apologize. No worries at all. So today I just wanted to talk more about next steps and then in July I will have a lot more financial information for you and what that looks like for just, Chair Marshall had asked for all the expenses for the year and then also, so I have some known that I know we have and then I'm trying to gather information on because of this new change in the board composition that's bringing new expenses forward. So I'm working on getting that information. Great. So there'll be more detail at our next meeting, which will be in July. Correct. Yes. Okay. Are we ready for 1C? 1C. Okay. Yes.

10:27 So in front of you is a draft amendment, and this amendment is taking out the language that talks about running the budget process through the county. Again, because of the change in membership, the county council no longer has a majority, and so it just doesn't make sense that the council is approving a budget that the EMS District 2 board has already approved. So this, again, the amendment is between the county and the four cities as well as EMS District 2. So just wanting to run this through the process of everyone, all the jurisdictions, getting their feedback and then getting their approval as well. Is this something you need, is this an action item or just information at this point? Just informational. I did not put it on the action. It felt a little backwards, so I will be bringing this forward in July as an action item. Great.

11:27 Okay. Unless there's any questions, I think we're ready to move on to the bylaws amendment. So I don't have anything to share. I just wanted to have a discussion. There were two items that I was thinking about. So I didn't know, currently we only have a chair. I didn't know if the board felt like we needed a vice chair, someone to run the meetings in place if the chair is out. I just wanted to have discussion around that. That way we could draft, I say I, but I lean on my legal very heavily, but to draft language around that. But then also we need to draft language around the budget process so that it would be amending them again and again, nothing has been drafted. I just wanted to have discussion on the board's thoughts on some language and our budget process. Great. Thanks.

12:24 So board members, any thoughts or suggestions? I guess, chair, do you have, I guess, I don't think that we need maybe a vice chair, but maybe like with council, how we do, how we have a backup in, in the event that, you know, someone's out for, that you're out for some reason, maybe that, and then I don't know, like a second and a third, I don't know. That's that's a thought. I think if we call the backup person a vice chair, that would be okay as well. Yeah. Can you guys hear me all right? Yes, we can. Yeah. I mean, I'm not opposed to the idea of having a vice chair in case of illness or inability

13:19 for the chair to, to chair the meeting. I kind of agree with Michelle. Either we have like a, a verbal, Hey, you're back up number one and you're back up number two or, or a vice chair. And even in that contingency, we might have a, um, you know, a backup vice chair just as a contingency plan, just in case, uh, an, you know, illness, we get into the flu season or what have you, and we can't fill that spot that would allow still three board members to have a quorum and continue on with the board discussion and meetings that how the county council hand handles that we have a chair, we have a vice chair, and then if both of those folks aren't able to attend, it's this, whoever is senior, uh, in serving on the board would be the next backup.

14:18 So I'm, I'm open either way. Uh, I think it is good to have a designee. Do you need a motion on this or this is just discussion. I think if we are changing the bylaws though, uh, we might as well make all the changes at, uh, at one time. Yes. Is there a leaning towards just having a backup or a backup and a backup or a vice chair and a backup or go ahead. I guess I would lean towards having a vice chair and a backup. You just never know sickness, car accident, whatever. I think that would be my leaning as well. Yeah, I, I agree with that and I also kind of like the language that, uh, that backup

15:15 to the vice chair would be the senior board member on the committee. Sounds good. Okay. So that will be included in the, uh, bylaw amendment. Yes. Correct. And we'll send that around ahead of time. Some draft language for the board per the bylaws. You have to have it seven days in advance. So you'll have it in plenty of time of before the July board meeting. Great. Thanks a lot. Okay. We're moving on, uh, I guess to, Oh, three EMS administrative board. I know they had a meeting. Was there anything to report out from that meeting? Our meeting is actually tomorrow. We've only had one. So we had our kickoff meeting last month and most of that meeting was, there's a lot of people with some very, very, very busy schedules.

16:14 So last meeting was more around trying to figure out a consistent schedule for folks. And we are meeting once a month right now, unless it's needed, we will meet more often. And then we talked a little bit about some agenda items and one of the things we're going to be talking about tomorrow is the compliance reporting. And so that's going to be a big meeting for us because the quarter just ended. And if you remember from the contract, their AMRs reporting monthly that we're assessing liquidated damages quarterly. So, so far, everything seems to be looking okay, but tomorrow we'll really dig into some of that information and we'll be able to bring it back to the board in July. Great. And have all the positions been filled on the advisory board? Yes. Everybody's been all the designees. So there's the three, there's the fire chiefs, one from each district, the CRRSA director,

17:11 the medical program director, and then we have a local hospital administrator. So somebody from legacy salmon creek has joined us. It's a great group, just a lot of very, very busy schedules. Good. I can imagine. This was as we were negotiating contract for services, we had a working group. So this kind of evolved out of that for an ongoing technical committee to advise us. So great. And my hope is, is that the person reporting out from the EMS board will not be me. You'll get to hear from one of the members. So that is my hope. Perfect. Okay. Any questions before we move on? Yes. Well, first of all, thank you, Deanne, for all that work and bringing us that information. As you had mentioned, the liquidated damages and the assessment of such on a quarterly

18:05 basis, my initial reaction is that the costs that EMS too would incur for budget and administrative and all those things, the various things that we've already talked about could potentially come out of those liquidated damages or would it be something where we would want to keep that separate or do you know? So as far as the liquidated damages, that's not anything that's guaranteed to EMS district too. So it's not a revenue source that we should be counting on. It's possible for some of the additional fees. I think we can have further discussion on that, whether it's part of the contract administration fee or right now there is a fund balance. I think it's right around the $200,000, but without consistent revenue, that's going to go very fast.

19:04 So again, I don't know that fund balance is something to count on either. So I think when we know more about what those costs are going to look like, I think we can have better discussions on how we're going to pay for those costs. It would be good to know what our options even are as far as generating revenue. But could you explain what liquidated damages are? Liquidated damages without having it right in front of me are when the contractor does not meet their response times. That's one of them. There's a few other things. We have a whole exhibit on liquidated damages within our contract. So my apologies for not having that in front of me, but the one that comes to mind is mostly around response times, and it's a percentile of the calls that they don't meet. And then again, if they consecutively do it, there's additional liquidated damages.

20:02 But I think there's some other-- again, we have a full exhibit on liquidated damages. Thank you. I just think the public would be wondering what that meant. And we want liquidated damages to be very, very low. So we don't want to be making any money there. You are correct. You want them low for a lot of reasons, but yes. Great. Thank you. So a lot more to come on all of that. Anything else related to the administrative board? So we'll have more of a report out at our next meeting. Yes, ma'am. When will they be meeting? So we're meeting tomorrow for the second time, and then we're meeting monthly. So the admin board is meeting every month. Great. Thank you. OK. So let's just right along to other and public comment. And I know we had someone online.

20:56 I don't know if anyone in the room wanted to say anything. We need for a hand to raise. Maybe we can announce public comment again. I'm not-- OK. We're ready for public comment at this time. If you could keep your comments limited to three minutes. Is there anyone online? Oh, nobody online. OK. Well, unless there's something for the good of the order, I don't see anything. Yes, please go ahead. Hi, chair. Oh, excuse me. There. Thank you. I just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to the full board, or at least those attending today.

21:54 So my name is Katie Jollma. And I will be helping represent the board on their legal advice. And I'm from the civil prosecuting attorney's office here at the county. And we'll proceed to still extend those services to the board as the contract moves out into more of a quasi-jurisdictional approach here coming soon. So thank you. Thanks very much. Happy to have you helping us out. OK. And with that, we've completed our agenda. And without objection, this meeting is adjourned.