ORANGE PARK – The Orange Park Town Council took the first step Tuesday towards negotiating a more equitable emergency medical service revenue from the county.

For the last 10 years, town staff have responded to emergency calls outside of town limits in lieu of county EMS staff and, according to town officials, have not been properly paid for their services.

According to Town Manager Jim Hanson, only half of the calls town staff respond to are within town limits. The rest, he said, have town staff traveling as far as Middleburg, Green Cove Springs and Oakleaf.

Tuesday’s meeting was a way to poll the council’s opinions on the subject and create a list of strategies and goals moving forward on how the council approaches the county about the perceived inequity.

Council members designated Council Member Gary Meeks to serve as the council’s negotiator with the county during the town’s recent visioning session. During that meeting, it was a unanimous decision that EMS revenue be among the year’s top priorities.

Following the meeting, council members walked away with a short list of possible fixes to the situation.

The town could sue the county for double taxation. Although a rather explosive response to a decade-old problem, Council Member Ron Raymond said it could bring immediate focus on the issue.

Another potential fix would be to stop EMS vehicles from transporting non-residents to hospitals, and instead arrive on the scene to stabilize an individual and remain until a county or private EMS service can transport.

If that move is taken, the town can also mandate that town fire trucks stay only within town limits. The town does not have the legal authority to mandate the same for first responders.

Alternatively, the town can simply attempt to negotiate a more equitable deal with the county in exchange for its services – which could take years and cost the town millions in the interim – or attempt to cut off services from the county by obtaining its own certificate of need from the state or county.

By town estimates, if the town were to break off from the county and run an independent fire rescue and emergency services operation, the town could stand to gain approximately $239,000 in annual revenue.

However, to obtain a certificate of need from the county would be an arduous process, and would be even more difficult if the town attempted to obtain it from the state. Typically, certificates of need are distributed from counties to municipalities to allow them the opportunity to construct a facility or service – in this case an independent fire service that operated solely within the town limits.

While the brainstorm session ended without a clear path moving forward, the consensus remained that something needed to change.

“My opinion is I think there’s an inequity, and it’s not just EMS, although EMS is a large portion of it,” Meeks said.

The county disbanded an interlocal agreement in 2007 that contributed roughly $1.7 million to pay for the town’s contribution.

The county owns town EMS vehicles, but the town provides the staffing for those vehicles. The county receives all funds from emergency transport, even if it is town workers who provide the service.

The town’s fire service budget this year was $2.1 million.

“Orange Park is providing fire service as the primary service to a large area outside of Orange Park for which we get no reimbursement whatsoever,” said Town Manager Jim Hanson.

Orange Park is the only municipality in the county with its own emergency medical service staff, and according to Town Fire Chief Al Barker, the only municipality in the state that contributes heavily to the emergency services of surrounding, unincorporated areas.

“Public safety, that’s our primary response to these citizens, everything is supplement to that, but we’re taking that away – look at those dots,” Meeks said as he referenced a map showing where in the last year town staff has responded. “Every time we’re at one of those dots, we have nothing here.”