Hennessey’s ambulance service employees are now wearing Mercy Regional of Oklahoma uniforms instead of Life EMS uniforms, Town Administrator Tiffany Rowen told Hennessey trustees during their Tuesday night meeting at Town Hall.

“We just heard that they said that they would not serve us unless we pretty much doubled the cost,” she said. “That would take us from $17,000 a month to $34,000 a month.”

No Official Notice, Yet

“We haven’t received any type of official notice,” Rowen told the board. “Right now we’re still going on like we have been. And the town’s contract calls for them to give us a 45-day notice.”

Rowen said an emergency board meeting would be called if the town received an official notification from the company that they were stopping services.

“We’re in talks with the county,” Rowen told trustees. “We’re talking about different things about how we can supplement our funds if we get a letter from the new owners saying they can’t provide service at the current rate.”

LIFE has been providing the emergency medical service since local voters approved the half-cent tax in September 2000, according to the public library’s Hennessey Clipper site.

522 District is an Option Hennessey is the only municipality in the county that doesn’t participate in the Kingfisher County 522 District, Rowen told the board.

“We’ve got a dedicated half-cent sales tax now,” she said, “and that’s not bringing anywhere close to subsidizing it if it goes to $35,000 to $40,000 a month.”

The town’s emergency services department currently gets a half-cent of the town’s 4-cent sales tax, Rowen told the Times & Free Press after the meeting.

That half-cent is used to supply services to the entire Hennessey School District area instead of just those living inside the town limits.

If voters approved a 522 District, then county commissioners would appoint members to the board who lived within that district.

3 Mill Property Taxes

Rowen said she wanted to be “transparent” and let board members know “we’re just talking” with the county about a 522 District that’s “based on ad valorem tax. It’s 3 mills on property taxes.”

If your property is appraised at $100,000, then it would be $33 a year, she said.

“Just a basic ambulance run is billed out at around $800,” she said. “When you’re in an emergency situation, they’re going to do air med. That’s anywhere from $18,000 to $20,000, at least.”

The 522 Districts are also based on miles in the school district and that’s 243 square miles for the Hennessey Public Schools.

“In the EMS world, 45 days isn’t long if they gave us notice that we have to come up with another way to provide services,” said Trustee Bert Gritz, “because I don’t want to see our citizens be without emergency medical service for 15 minutes, let alone days.”

Town Has Options

“We do have some options,” said Rowen.

The town’s accountant said the town wouldn’t have to go out for bids and the board could hire another company.

She said “a couple of services” said if the new company backs out, they’d supply a temporary ambulance service at the same rate the town is paying now until the town came up with another solution.

From the audience, District 2 County Commissioner Mike Sparks told the board members if they want to go for a 522 District, they’ll want to get it on a ballot soon.

Rowen agreed and said sooner is better because they wouldn’t be able to get any of those tax funds until 2027.

Rowen said she’d asked LIFE “how much we’re billing and collecting” for several months and nothing was provided, so they’d know if a raise in cost is justified.

Fire Hydrant Issues

These items were listed by Trustee Harold Shaw for discussion: replacement, intervals for functionality and serviceability checks, how these checks are documented and which town employees are responsible for accomplishment of these checks.

Shaw thanked the firefi ghters for recently checking the fire hydrants, then asked Chief Brandon Scott the status of the fire hydrants.

“For the most part, some of them had their deficiencies where the caps were hard to get off. Typical maintenance, just neglect, basically, you might say,” Scott said. “But as we went through and checked them and got them dusted back off, we lubricated the caps and put them back on. Some of the skins were hard to turn, but that could just be a sign of age, could be a sign of sediment or something in the lines.

“There were a few that were on the list that possibly had been removed.”

“Had been what?” asked Shaw.

“Removed since we’d checked them, or since they were checked last, any way.”

The status of a couple of hydrants was asked about, including one closest to the Eagle Event Center at the school.

“It’s dead,” said one of the firefighters. “When they did that water line project they cut it on the wrong side of the valve,” said Public Works Director Alyssa Kubat. “In order to keep it from going out into the ditch, we had to close another valve.” Gritz asked who would be fixing the hydrant.

“This really irks me that a contractor that we paid to come in and do that water line project along Mitchell Road in front of the schools caused the most expensive piece of public property in the community to not have a working fire hydrant, and he didn’t fix it.”

Rowen said it was likely something the town employees could remedy.

“It’s not a hard fix,”Kubat said.

“Okay, I’m just thinking if we’re talking cutting street and getting into a big thing,” said Gritz. “I’m just not pleased that a contractor came up to this and went off and left it.”

Discussion came up as to who should be checking the hydrants for their annual inspections, whether it be the fire department or another town department.

“I think that’s a good checks and balances that they check it and we check it,” said Rowen. “Because we could be saying something, but they’re actually the ones utilizing them so that they know where they’re at…and which ones are their good ones, not so good, and also giving us feedback of which ones, what we need to do with them.”

Shaw also wanted to clarify a term Scott used about the hydrants being neglected and wanted to assure the citizens that the hydrants were being inspected regularly as required.

“Lack of use was a better way to say that,” Scott said. “But yes, sitting there, annually, they’re going to rust up. They’re going to seize up on the caps, things like that. But (they are) checked annually and tested.”

Other Approved Items

The board also approved:

• A new travel policy for staff;

• An agreement with Hennessey Senior Citizen Center Inc. to lease the building for $1 a year and the town to pay for upgrades to the building from the Sam Snyder Trust Fund because he had included the center in his will;

• Accepted JA-LLE grant for $9,370 from the District Attorneys Council for SAS Safety Raven Black Nitrite gloves for law enforcement.

Tabled Items

• Budget amendments were not approved, but will be considered next month because some board members did not receive copies of those amendments.

• Changing employee vacation leave accruals and usage and possible action to increase pay for Public Works employees in place of providing clothing and boot vouchers. On that last item, Trustee David Jones said: “You’re asking the wrong guy if you ask me, because I’m a firm believer in uniforms.”

At The Meeting

Trustees at the meeting were Gritz, Shaw and Jones, and as the senior board member, Gritz chaired the meeting in the absence of Mayor Randy Bohnstedt and Vice Mayor John Peach. Town Clerk (and office manager) Shelley Burch was also present.

Staff at the meeting were Rowen, Kubat, Town Attorney Jared Harrison, Scott, Assistant Fire Chief James Matousek and firefighter Levi Copeland.

Also in the audience was retired firefighter Tim Riddle and Sparks.

Absent was Treasurer Kelley Vaverka.