Communities across Pennsylvania struggle with an emergency of their own as they try to provide adequate emergency services amid rising demands, declining numbers of volunteers and broadly higher costs for equipment, fuel, support and logistics.
Volunteer ranks that numbered about 300,000 statewide in the 1980s now include only about 40,000.
It’s a multi-layered problem. The population generally has grown older statewide. Many employers do not support volunteerism as they once did, leaving many would-be volunteers with the choice of volunteering or keeping their jobs. Training is time-consuming. And even when emergency medical service workers are paid, the pay generally is relatively low.
There has been a wave of consolidations statewide, as companies maximize the number of available volunteers and spread costs as broadly as possible. In some cases, full-time municipal departments have absorbed some companies to mitigate their costs, while retaining volunteers.
Many companies also have sought more financial support from governments in the communities that they serve, with mixed results.
Now, Republican state Rep. Brad Roae of Crawford County has introduced two bills that might enable local governments to provide more support, at their discretion.
Several years ago, the Legislature passed a law allowing county governments to assess a local $5 vehicle registration fee atop the PennDOT registration, and mandated the revenue be used for local road and bridge projects. Several local counties have imposed the fee.
One of Roae’s bills would give county governments that have imposed the fee the option to dedicate all or part of it to EMS systems.
Likewise, the state has authorized counties to impose per-room hotel occupancy taxes, based on county and municipal classifications. Those funds are supposed to be dedicated to tourism promotion and recreation projects.
The second Roae bill would enable counties to dedicate all or some of that revenue, as well, to EMS needs.
Local officials typically embrace flexibility because they believe they are better situated than state officials to identify the greatest local need.
The state government itself needs to do more to ensure health emergency services are available statewide. But the two bills offering local revenue flexibility are reasonable ways to help.
