This online news website is owned and operated by Becky Watts. If you enjoy reading Pike County Times, consider buying an advertisement for your business or sending a donation to support the only free online newspaper in Pike County. Donations can be sent to: The Pike County Times, PO Box 843, Zebulon, Georgia 30295. Click here to donate through PayPal. Thanks for supporting Pike County's only free online newspaper!
By Editor Becky Watts
ZEBULON - Grady notified Pike County on March 22, 2019 that it would be unable to continue under the current agreement and gave Pike County a sixty (60) day notice as required prior to the renewal term of July 1, 2019. The Pike County Commission did not agree to any of the terms that Grady proposed in the letter (details in the article below) at a recent commission meeting, but Pike County agreed to meet with Grady and see if negotiations would find common ground. Pike County Times has learned that the Pike County Commissioners and Grady/South Georgia Ambulance have come to an agreement on the contract.
County Manager Bobby Bickley advised today that Grady has agreed to provide two (2) 24 hour/7 day a week ambulances for Pike County for $300,000 per year. This is $50,000 more than our current contract that was supposed to end in 2020. Pike County agreed to add two years onto the current ambulance contract which extends Grady's time here in Pike County through 2022.
Bickley advised that both parties agreed that there would be no further negotiations through 2022 pending a final commission vote on this amended contract.
Bickley said that this amended contract will likely be approved in two phases. The $50,000 will be added to the 2019-2020 budget in Tuesday's budget hearing, and the final vote will likely take place in the night meeting of the Board of Commissioners.
Thank you to First Bank of Pike for sponsoring Pike County Times’ Breaking News Alerts! First Bank of Pike has been serving customers in Pike County and the surrounding area since 1901 and offers Personal and Business banking with a personal touch. Services include checking, savings, money market, certificates of deposit, and IRA’s. Mobile Banking and Bill Payment services are also available! Click here for more. Please let First Bank of Pike know that you appreciate their sponsorship of Breaking News Alerts on Pike County's only FREE online newspaper!
If you want to find out about how you can get Breaking News Alerts, click here. Thanks for reading and supporting Pike County Times.com!
By Editor Becky Watts
ZEBULON - Grady Emergency Medical Services/South Georgia Ambulance has notified Pike County government that it will be terminating the current ambulance contract. Grady provided 60 days notice to the county that its service to the county will end on June 30, 2019.
The current contract was signed on June 30, 2015. You can read more in depth of the awarding of this contact in the article “Pike County Awards Ambulance Contract to Grady EMS” by clicking here. You can also read about the opening of the sealed bids on May 13, 2015 by clicking here. And there is a lot of detail from the ambulance providers in the article about the Special Called Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, May 19, 2015 that you can read by clicking here.
The story at that time was that Mid Georgia Ambulance had held the ambulance contract with Pike County for eight years, and Pike County decided to put out bids to the ambulance community to see if it could get service for less than $395,000 per year. The county received three bids from Mid Georgia Ambulance, Spalding Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and Grady Emergency Medical Service. Mid Georgia bid $370,000 per year with options for 1, 3 and 5 year contracts, Spalding EMS bid $350,000 per year for a 3 year contract only, and Grady EMS bid $275,000 with 1, 3, and 5 year renewable contracts with a specification that they would hire anyone from Mid Georgia who met their requirements and all current Mid Georgia employees would keep their pay, benefits, and seniority.
In a 3-2 vote with Commissioners Tommy Powers and Tim Daniel opposed, the majority of the county commission chose to go with Grady EMS because they were the low bidder. The agreement was for a 1 year contract renewable for 5 years that would end on June 30, 2020. The service would provide paramedic and state certified personnel to staff and serve on two ambulances that would be housed inside of Pike County on a 24 hour a day/7 days a week/365 days per year basis with an additional ambulance that would be in Pike County Monday through Friday for 12 hours per day.
In 2017, Grady EMS asked for and received a reduction in the ambulance contract. Grady EMS asked the county amend the contract to include only the two full-time ambulances on a 24 hour/7 days a week/365 days per year basis and one back up ambulance as needed with a reduction in Pike County’s fee from $275,000 to $250,000. This eliminated the permanent 12 hour ambulance that had been a part of the original contract. It was stated in the contract that Grady EMS would “utilize its regional resources and mutual aid agreements for exceptional demand requirements.” The contract then continued until June 30, 2020.
Commissioners had been asked once again to amend and reduce the contract in the most recent Board of Commissioners meeting held on Tuesday, April 30, 2019. Two 24/7 ambulances is what was currently in the contract. The reductions from the two full-time ambulances that Pike County was now being provided were as follows:
•1-24/7 ALS Transport Ambulance and 1-12/7 ALS Transport Ambulance Peak times are defined as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Subsidy: $250,000
•1-24/7 ALS Transport Ambulance, 1-12/7 ALS Transport Ambulance and 1-12/7 Quick Response Vehicle (QRV). The QRV would be on duty at night when the 12 transport hour unit is off duty.
Subsidy: $350,000
•2-24/7 ALS Transport Ambulances
Subsidy: $500,000
The Pike County Commission met before a packed crowd on Tuesday night with an open microphone for citizens to speak to commissioners without getting on an agenda in the 15 minutes prior to the meeting. Citizens took this opportunity to voice their disapproval with the changes that Grady EMS was proposing. When the time came to vote, there was a lot of discussion. County Manager Bobby Bickley said that he has met with Grady and that the Grady EMS advised that the reason this was being proposed was because of the volume of calls during peak and non-peak times. According to their documentation, this provided a justification for the reduction in one full-time ambulance to a part-time ambulance without hurting service to citizens in the county.
Grady EMS provides a monthly list of calls for each month to the county as well as response times. There were 171 total 911 calls received for last month with 169 the previous month. The year to date total is 523. According to last month’s documentation, Grady EMS response times for life threatening emergency calls was 9.4 minutes and non-emergency calls was 10.2 minutes.
CM Bickley recommended that commissioners choose option 1. He said that over the past 18 months during non-peak times, there have been 24 instances with a need for a second ambulance within the same hour.
Chairman Johnson asked if we don’t take action tonight and stay where we are, what happens? He was advised that the county will likely get something from Grady severing the contract. Commissioner Powers asked about response times with the reduction in ambulance service and was advised that they are required to be under 12 minutes, and they do have mutual aid agreements with surrounding counties.
County Attorney Rob Morton advised that unless either party provides something in writing before 60 days, the contract will renew. The termination would be required by May 1, 2019. Commissioner Tim Guy said that if we bid this out, where will this leave us? CM Bickley said that he has talked with others and that we have a good deal with what we have. He said that we could end up with something a lot higher if we bid this out.
Chairman Briar Johnson said that if we do nothing, what happens? The answer was that they either provide notification of termination or the contract continues as it is written until next year. Commissioner Guy said that he appreciates their service but thinks that $500,000 (which is two full-time ambulances as is in our contract now) is too much. Commissioner Daniel said that we modified this two years ago already. Commissioner Guy kept going back to what if.
When Chairman Johnson asked what the board wanted to do, the consensus was to do nothing. The contract has a 60 day clause that says, "Either party may terminate this Agreement by notifying the other party in writing not less than sixty (60) days prior to the expiration of the Initial Term or any Renewal Term."
The following is the letter that was received by email on May 1, 2019 from former county manager John Hanson who now works for Grady EMS.
May 1, 2019
Mr. Briar Johnson, Chairman
Pike County Board of Commissioners
77 Jackson Street
Zebulon, GA 30295
RE: Pike County Emergency Services Agreement Renewal
Dear Briar,
Pursuant to my letter of March 22nd, 2019 and our meeting this April 8th, Grady will be unable to continue under the current agreement at the end of current term ending June 30, 2019. Please accept this letter as official sixty (60) day notice prior to the renewal term of July 1, 2019.
It is however our intent to continue the negotiations to achieve a workable solution for both parties. We believe our discussions at the April 8th meeting were positive and the renewal revisions are well within market value for the county in comparison to similar Georgia rural counties operated by Grady. We look forward to working with you and your staff to complete the contract revisions and continuing to serve the citizens of Pike County. I’m available by phone at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
William E. Compton
Senior Vice President
[Note from the Editor: The following is from items received through open records this afternoon. Added at 10 p.m. on 5.2.19.]
Grady EMS provided an average of call demands for Pike County from January 1, 2019 to March 10, 2019. According to this document, there was an average of 5.2 calls per day on Sundays, 5.5 on Mondays, 5.4 on Tuesdays, 5.1 on Wednesdays, 4.9 on Thursdays, 5.5 on Fridays, and 5.1 on Saturdays.
The summary of call response times from January 1, 2019 to March 31, 2019 is as follows. There were 360 Priority 1 calls (defined as a life threatening emergency) with an average response time of 10.2 minutes. There were 107 Priority 3 calls (defined as non-emergency) with an average response time of 10.0 minutes. Both averages are under the 12 minute response time that has been mentioned more than once in meetings.
The Pike County Commission will be sending out a bid for ambulance service contracts at an upcoming meeting. [Note from the Editor added at 10 p.m. on 5.2.19. It sounds like there could be a possibility of negotiations with Grady based on a careful reading of the above letter, but we won't know until Wednesday's regular called commission meeting whether the commissioners will decide to try to negotiate with Grady EMS (and hope they can find a suitable agreement before the July 1, 2019 deadline when we will have no ambulance service provider) or if they will simply go out to bid with this contract (and have a plan in place by July 1, 2019 for ambulance service for our citizens). In my opinion, 60 days isn't a very long time to get ducks in a row to ensure that a service will be provided at a future date. A rebid would be my vote, but I'm just a civil activist and newspaper reporter who calls things like I see them.]
Thank you to First Bank of Pike for sponsoring Pike County Times’ Breaking News Alerts! First Bank of Pike has been serving customers in Pike County and the surrounding area since 1901 and offers Personal and Business banking with a personal touch. Services include checking, savings, money market, certificates of deposit, and IRA’s. Mobile Banking and Bill Payment services are also available! Click here for more. Please let First Bank of Pike know that you appreciate their sponsorship of Breaking News Alerts on Pike County's only FREE online newspaper!
If you want to find out about how you can get Breaking News Alerts, click here. Thanks for reading and supporting Pike County Times.com!