The City of Warren has been exploring the possibility of ways to no longer respond with its ambulances outside of the city limits for months.

But until Monday the discussion has been largely devoid of detailed data to indicate the true cost of its response outside the city.

That’s no longer the case.

Warren City Council met with Fire Chief Dave Krogler and Operations and Training Officer Steve Hoffman during a work session to explore those figures and discuss possible next steps.

“When I took office one of the big things that I wanted to see (is a) more equitable solution to the problems that we’ve had. Part of it we can deal with. Part of it we can’t.”

He proposed an increase in ambulance rates where the city has been “way below the state average for a long time.”

Krogler indicated he does not want to drop out of a county-wide response plan and no longer take calls outside the city.

“I don’t think backing out of this is the best way,” he said. “(It) will shine a black eye on us.”

He, instead, proposed cooperative management agreements with the municipalities which could result in the municipalities contributing to the costs incurred by the city for responding in a given municipality.

“It would take a willing partner,” Councilman Gregory Fraser cautioned.

“The city needs to establish what the cost to provide EMS services is,” Hoffman explained. “That way we can engage the municipalities.”

One of the major challenges is that a vast majority of the city’s calls are for patients on Medicare or Medicaid, which have fixed reimbursement rates far below what the city would ordinarily charge.

Hoffman said the ambulance rates are set where they are because the city recognized that the taxpayers were already incurring a portion of the cost of response by paying their taxes.

The Times Observer will more fully detail the financial costs of EMS and the proposed rate hikes in a story for the Wednesday edition.

Council, though, recognized that action is needed. And the response plan – which has, to date, unsuccessfully aimed at ensuring by 24/7 coverage in the county was a target.

Councilman John Wortman said his view is that the “best course of action” is to “withdraw and negotiate with whomever is interested.”If we don’t get at this problem now, (we are) going to continue to lose money,” Mayor Maurice Cashman said.

Council acknowledged that the surrounding municipalities would need at least a year to adjust their budgets to include the costs in any agreement.

“I don’t believe you have time,” Hoffman said. “The way it’s (the EMS system) precipitated and growing and just compounding itself, as it continues it will become unsustainable (and) will fail.”

Fraser acknowledged that is a “pretty grim picture for a lot of those townships” but added that “at least half of them are going to say no” to a cooperative agreement that addresses the funding issue.

During the council meeting that followed Freenock asked council to approve a motion to contract with a law firm “to handle all aspects of EMS response outside the city.”

Council took that action and the law firm will be tasked to review the steps outlined in the state’s response to potentially withdraw from the response plan and assist with the development and negotiation of potential cooperative agreements with neighboring municipalities.