Gas prices and inflation hitting Coshocton first responders

• High gas prices, general inflation and supply chain issues having impact on everyone; including first responders.
• Coshocton County Sheriff's Office and EMS reporting fuel becoming larger part of budget and will most likely exceed first of year projections.
• For EMS, Director Todd Shroyer also reports problems with getting needed medication and ordering ambulances.
• Shroyer said this also hurts the ability to hire new employees, which is critical to services.

COSHOCTON — High gas prices, general inflation and supply chain issues are being felt by everyone in Coshocton County and beyond. 

While individuals might have options to drive less or buy alternate products, first responders don't often have that luxury. Law enforcement, mobile medical units and fire companies have to be on the road and have to have certain equipment and supplies at hand. 

Director Todd Shroyer of Coshocton County Emergency Medical Services and Sheriff Jim Crawford of the Coshocton County Sheriff's Office, the two largest first responder units in the county, said their departments are being hit hard by these national issues. 

While they're getting by financially right now, both know they will have to adjust budgets and tighten belts by the end of the year. However, that can be hard when a lot of revenue is fixed and there isn't much room to cut other expenses. 

Shroyer said this can impact elsewhere, like in the important area of staffing where employees have to do more and more with less and less over time. 

Coshocton County Sheriff's Office

The sheriff's office has 35 vehicle with 25 being SUVs in the patrol division. Fuel costs for 2021 were $90,450 and $100,000 was budgeted for this year.

Crawford said they will most likely need to adjust that as they've spent $54,732 for the first half of 2022. It also leaves a big question mark for next year's budget and it's hard to guess what prices might be in 2023. 

Crawford said fuel costs is usually about 1% of their budget, but that is rising. Why they haven't funneled money from any other areas into gas yet, they might need to before the end of the year. However, costs are rising in almost every area of law enforcement such as food and other elements related to housing inmates in the Coshocton Justice Center.

"We're trying to make every mile count," Crawford said of personnel out on the road. 

Coshocton County Emergency Medical Services

Shroyer said the most pressing problem for EMS currently is that several critical medications, including those for someone in cardiac arrest, are on nationwide back order. 

He said fuel is always a significant cost, but historically amounts to about one-third of annual operation of an ambulance. However, they're expecting that total to be $20,000 to $30,000 higher this year than last. EMS spent $44,957 in gas in 2021 and has spent $26,422 through the first five months of 2022.

While they are looking at ways to reduce fuel usage, Shroyer said most of the driving can't be helped as it's related to responding to calls or back filling stations when other crews are out. 

"The cost of purchasing the vehicle and maintaining it is usually about two-thirds of the operating cost and these costs are escalating as fast as fuel right now," Shroyer said. "Sadly it wasn’t that long ago that we could purchase, maintain and fuel an ambulance for a little over $1 per mile. Now our total cost is nearing $3 per mile." 

The agency has 12 vehicles with eight ambulances and four SUV support vehicles. An ambulance gets about eight miles per gallon on average with travel of well over 100,000 miles annually, Shroyer said.  

Replacing old vehicles is also a challenge due to an ordering backlog. Shroyer said an ambulance ordered last fall probably won't be received until 2023. They're trying to order another one now with hopes of getting it by 2024.

"Some ambulance manufacturers have already moved delivery dates to sometime in 2025 for current orders being placed in June 2022," Shroyer said. "It has never been this bad in the 50-year history of EMS and ambulance prices are increasing at rates we have never seen. As we are forced to keep vehicles running beyond their normal life cycle, the cost to repair them also increases significantly."

One thing some might not think of, Shroyer said, is how all these raising prices impact employment as money that could go to raising salaries and enticing potential employees has to go elsewhere. 

"We are asking people to put their lives on the line at times, risk taking viruses and bugs home to their family, work extremely long hours, sometimes 36 or 48 hours at a stretch, and do all this for a wage that is less than what they could make at many fast food or telemarketing businesses. That is just not fair," Shroyer said. "I am not demeaning other occupations, but in my mind there is a huge difference between trying to save the life of someone not breathing and trying to talk someone through resetting their cable television."

Open positions in the medical field is a problem everywhere, Shroyer said, and they don't have the luxury of shortening hours or closing one day a week like other businesses. His only option is to force staff to worker even longer hours.    

"Our health care system is truly approaching the breaking point. There are many places where you will be lucky to get an ambulance in 20 minutes when you call 911. There are patients waiting for hours in emergency departments to get an in-patient bed in a hospital because while there are empty beds, there are no nurses to staff those beds," Shroyer said. "Nurses are being forced to try to care for as many as twice the number of patients they used to care for. Patients in hospitals are waiting for hours, and sometimes days, to be transported to another facility because the non-emergent transport ambulance companies are going bankrupt."

While one might think raising rates is an easy solution, Shroyer said it isn't. No matter what one charges for an ambulance transport or other service, Medicare and Medicaid pays the same. Such patients represent about 80% of what local EMS sees. As an example, Coshocton County EMS transported 69 patients with Medicaid in April and billed $54,598. They're projected to receive $10,826. The remainder is a write-off. 

"We could have raised our rates and billed Medicaid $1 million and we would still only receive $10,826," Shroyer said. 

Leonard Hayhurst is a community content coordinator and general news reporter for the Coshocton Tribune with close to 15 years of local journalism experience and multiple awards from the Ohio Associated Press. He can be reached at 740-295-3417 or llhayhur@coshoctontribune.com. Follow him on Twitter at @llhayhurst.