WINTON- The big topic of discussion at the Monday meeting of the Ely Area Ambulance Joint Powers Board (JPB) was how to divvy up the financing of the ambulance service’s facilities operation budget in a fair manner.
At the heart of the debate were the invoices for each of the JPB members plus the Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital (EBCH), which the city of Ely brought to the meeting for approval. The JPB voted at its July 24 meeting to issue the invoices for $3,415 for each entity to cover expenses of $17,077 through July 17. The city of Ely does the invoicing for the JPB because Ely handles the bookkeeping of the board’s funds.
According to the July 24 meeting minutes, Winton Mayor Marlene Zorman protested at the time regarding a” five-way split for building expenses,” as it had not been approved by the Winton City Council. She added that would cause Winton with its 167 residents to pay more for building expenses than they were for ambulance service. As Zorman noted during a prolonged discussion, the other members of the JPB are larger in population than Winton, noting that Ely is 20 times larger than Winton.
After a protracted and rambling discussion that took up most of the hour-and-15-minute meeting, the JPB approved splitting the expenses with Winton paying four percent and Ely, Morse and Fall Lake—the other three members of the JPB—each paying 32 percent.
Zorman stated that she would bring the new amount for Winton to her city council at their meeting which met on Monday evening. The Timberjay followed up with Mayor Zorman on Tuesday and confirmed that the Winton city Council approved contributing four percent for the building expenses.

Splitting costs
The decision behind the four percent/32 percent split of expenses is based on the contributions of the four JPB entities for last year’s purchase of a facility for the use of the Ely Area Ambulance Service (EAAS).
Through the JPB, the four entities disburse funding for the building operations and other expenses to support the nonprofit EAAS, which provides EMS coverage for the four JPB members. The amounts to be disbursed must be approved by the JPB, which usually happens on a monthly basis.
Zorman, the JPB chair, brought up the topic of how the invoice amounts were split. Ely clerk-treasurer Harold Langowski brought paperwork to Monday’s meeting, invoicing each JPB member and EBCH for 20 percent of the building expenses.
“At our last meeting,” Zorman began, “we talked about not paying 20 percent. Winton was in favor of paying our percent of the population for growth, which is three percent. We’d be willing to put up four percent, but that’s about all we can do … because otherwise, we’re paying way, way, way more than anybody else,”
Morse Township JPB member Bob Berrini pointed out that Ely, Fall Lake and Morse all contributed around $150,000 each for the building purchase last year whereas Winton contributed “probably two percent of the building.”
In a reply that echoed her protest from the July 24, Zorman responded, “(Winton) paid $11,000. We paid as much per person as everyone else did … So, if we own two percent of the building, why should we pay 20 percent of the costs of operating it?”

Invoicing EBCH
The invoice prepared for EBCH appeared to be an act of optimism. EBCH decided in April to curtail its voluntary donations to supplement JPB funding for EAAS expenses, stating that it would like to see better financial accounting and communications from EAAS.
At the July 24 JPB meeting, the board, EAAS, and EBCH mutually reported progress in July on improving EBCH-EAAS relations and communication. The invoice for EBCH was drafted in the hope that the hospital would resume its voluntary support of the EAAS expenses funded by the JPB.
If EBCH resumed its support of EAAS operating expenses, then the split for invoicing would become four percent for Winton and 24 percent for Ely, Morse, Fall Lake and EBCH. Since it was unknown at the Aug. 7 meeting if EBCH will resume its donations to support EAAS, JPB member for Ely, Al Forsman, asked the one member of the hospital board present about EBCH’s intensions.
“Can I ask a question,” Forsman inquired of EBCH board chair Tim Riley, “and actually have our hospital board director that’s here (answer)? Is it likely that the hospital would contribute that 24 percent of operating expenses of the joint powers?”
Riley replied, “I should not answer any questions on behalf of the hospital at this time.”

Other business
In other business, the JPB:
• Approved the disbursement of $36,000 to the EAAS and the payment of an Aug. 3 utilities bill of $249, which were the only transactions recorded since the July 24 meeting.
• Approved $9,800 for Toltz, King, Duvall, Anderson, and Associations Inc. to prepare the cost estimate documentation required by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture grant for the needed renovation work on the property purchased last year.
• Discussed the funding of the EAAS 2023 shortfall. Berrini remarked at one point in the general discussion that “if we don’t get (an additional) $78,000, we’ll be in the negative before February.” Langowski opined, “We need to figure this out now, or we’ll be talking about this every meeting until we do.”
The additional subsidies to keep the EAAS running are a sticking point since the Fall Lake and Morse JPB members reported their townships had already voted on their budgets. “We’ve done our budget so we would have to call a special meeting (to vote on additional funding),” said Berrini. Fall Lake representative Eric Hart sounded a similar concern. “We did our levy (already) … so we have no (additional) money (to contribute)” beyond the $15.15/person rate agreed upon to fund the 2023 EAAS budget presented at the July 24 meeting,” he said.
Zorman capped the discussion on this matter, stating, “We’ll have to meet again and figure out what we’re going to do,” about the unresolved financial matters, after consulting with the city councils and boards of supervisors of the JPB member entities.
 Set the next JPB meeting date for Aug. 28, at 4 p.m.