Post date: Jun 22, 2018 1:24:1 PM
I met with representatives from Northern Berkshire EMS and the College last week to review summary of transition costs from Village Ambulance merging with North Adams Ambulance. The plan was that the Town and College would split the one-time transition costs for this. While we had estimates of likely expenses (equipment, uniforms, rebranding, etc.), the revenue recapture from open Village claims was harder to estimate. The Finance Committee had committed up to the full amount of their reserve fund of $75,000 to this. We agreed that the College would pay all of the submitted expenses and then at the end of the fiscal year, we would review and the Town would reimburse the College from the Finance Committee reserve. We are issuing a check for for $63,298 to cover our share. This is less than we had anticipated (meaning that the revenue recapture performed better than expected.)
We expect that there may be a few straggler items that may need to be paid, so we will retain a portion of the appropriation for that event; however, it is unlikely that this will be more than a few thousand dollars in the case of all worst case projections coming true.
It was suggested that an update to the Board could be informative to discuss the new operation. I've made a note to schedule something for fall; at that point, all of the transition will be completed and there will be several solid months of fully consolidated operations from which to draw some data.