EMS clash with ESD over merger details

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The Gonzales Emergency Services District #1 (ESD) commissioners sought to clarify the next steps it would like to take in its ongoing merger with Gonzales County Emergency Medical Services and Rescue (EMS.) However, not everyone on the EMS board of directors agreed with the proposed action.

At the ESD meeting May 16, the commissioners proposed establishing a separate interim board that would effectively disband the current EMS board and absolve EMS board members of any liabilities. The interim board would expediate the merger and ensure the necessary operations of the EMS would continue until the ESD is prepared to provide care itself.

“There would be a contract with (EMS,) with the newly constituted board and the ESD,” Kenton ‘Ken’ Campbell, an attorney representing the ESD, said. “It would continue to operate at essentially the same way as now, until such time as we are set up, as the ESD, with our provider license, our Medicare, Medicaid numbers, anything else that we have, and it would just be a transfer.”

Campbell suggested the board be made up of two current ESD commissioners and an EMS selected candidate that would be approved by the ESD board. The ESD appointed commissioners Johnnie Hall and Dr. Commie Hinsey as its interim representatives. The ESD also reaffirmed to the EMS members present at the meeting that the merger is not supposed to be adversarial.

“I don’t want to sound like it’s a takeover because it’s not,” Campbell said. “This is a mutual going together.”

For the interim board to be created, the EMS board would need to pass new bylaws. The EMS had the opportunity to move on the proposed bylaws at its meeting May 21 but tabled the motion due to a lack of information.

EMS board members said they received the proposed bylaws, but it was apparently “generic” and did not include mention of assets or coverage of “past, present and future liabilities.”

Hall was the lone ESD representative at the May 21 meeting and, deliberately or not, bore the brunt of the EMS’s frustration.

“We were told, when we sat down and had this meeting and discusses making this merger, that we were going to work together to make this as smooth as possible,” EMS board member Frank Wallace said. “Well, working together and working for is two separate entities and what I am seeing happening right now is they are telling us that we are going to work for them during this merger instead of working with them. We have no say so on what has been done so far and what we were told not what’s happening.”

Some EMS board members said that if they receive all the information they would be more interested in moving forward, but until then they will wait and consult their attorney Jackie Williamson.

As currently constructed, the merger is expected to happen no later than Sept. 30, 2019.

Other news from the May 16 ESD meeting:

  • Johnnie Hall joined the ESD board and appointed assistant treasurer
  • The ESD heard an annual audit from Roloff, Hnatek and Co. L.L.P.
  • Financial and activity reports from EMS and Rescue were read and accepted as is.
  • ESD financial statements were read and accepted as is.

Other news from the May 21 EMS meeting:

  • The EMS board also tabled motions on assigning an ambulance to the ESD and authorizing its attorney to negotiate Jo Ann Mercer.
  • Minutes from EMS meetings on April 16 and May 7 were approved.
  • EMS financial and activity reports were read and accepted as is.

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