The Crossville City Council expressed concerns during a Tuesday work session about adding an ambulance service to the city’s fire department.
Some residents believe that having a city and county ambulance service would improve response times within Crossville city limits. Some council members questioned how the city would pay for the addition. Crossville Finance Director Nathan Clouse said increasing property taxes would be one of the few ways the city could pay.
“That alone is almost a 30-cent increase,” Clouse said. “Each penny increase is $62,316 and some change roughly, so that’s one way they can do it. Either that or we will have to pay the operational expenses out of our savings, which would eat through our savings pretty quickly.”
Clouse said the ambulance service would not draw any revenue for the first half of the year.
Crossville Mayor RJ Crawford said if the city adds an ambulance service, the county would withdraw its ambulance services in the city.
“I don’t blame the county,” Crawford said. “I mean, they are 20 percent underwater in regards to what they bring versus what goes out the door, so it’s not like we are adding to. The reality is we are just gonna replace, and the city’s gotta pay for it.”
Cumberland County EMS Director Chris Miller said the way the county EMS department provides four ambulances inside Crossville. Miller said that with a withdrawal, the EMS Department could experience layoffs.
“I very much could see a lot of people losing their job,” Miller said. “I mean, you would be losing a conservative estimate of 40 or 50 percent of our call volume because the largest majority of our call volume is inside the city, and those are gonna be gone.”
Crawford said he thinks the city needs to have a long-term plan before approving the addition of an ambulance service.
“The department needs to go on a five-year plan and figure out how do we get there, of course, just like you said, just pass the bill and then figure out how to pay for it, I don’t think that really works well,” Crawford said. “I have not seen it work nationally, statewide, and I don’t think it’s gonna work locally.”
