The Cold Lake Ambulance Society (CLAS) is holding their head above water, for now.
While the society receives funding from Alberta Health Services (AHS), it's not enough to cover the cost of the current level of service CLAS is providing.
The City of Cold Lake wants to see their service continue as is, and offered the CLAS $100,000 in funding in 2016 over the course of three months. However, that offer expired Dec. 31, 2016.
The organization opted to forge ahead without the funding because things were looking okay. Now, they're in a situation where CLAS is borrowing money through a line of credit and then paying it back once they receive their monthly installment of about $189,000 from AHS.
“Soon, that will become a position where they will be in debt,” Glenn Barnes, general manager of community services for the City of Cold Lake, told city council during their meeting last Tuesday.
“Where we are right now is in a waiting game with the two health funding providers, to understand where the positions are going to be,” Barnes noted about AHS and Saskatchewan Health Services on how much they will be contributing to CLAS.
The next meeting between CLAS and AHS isn't until September, what council wanted to know was whether CLAS would make it until then.
“If they're not helped right now, are they able to make their payroll?” queried Coun. Vicky Lefebvre.
Barnes confirmed that at this point, CLAS was meeting payroll using the borrowed dollars.
CAO Kevin Nagoya explained that the part of the discussions ongoing between the City of Cold Lake and AHS is whether to transfer the ambulance service into the city's hands. They have yet to hear word of if they will be moving ahead with taking over the service.
Up for discussion was whether the city should give CLAS a bit of a financial boost to help get them by.
Barnes recommended holding off on offering the $100,000 in funding until after the organization's meeting with AHS in September, so AHS was held accountable.
“We want to be clear that we will be prepared to take CLAS over and take it on should AHS reject the level of service we're currently at and wish to sustain,” he continued.
The ambulance service is being run by AHS, who will not fund the program to the current level of service being provided. Instead, they would like to see CLAS cut back on their 24-hour frontline vehicles.
Once the city got word of the requested cuts, they informed AHS that they would like to take over the service.
In order to continue running as-is, council offered up the funding that would have been distributed in three lump sums over the course of three months. Instead, CLAS made some cutbacks in terms of operating costs.
“They kept the same level of service, but they raked back a lot of the benefit packages with the employees. What we understand is AHS is reviewing the current level of service that has been going on for many years, to see if they want to support it financially. We're in a waiting game,” said Mayor Craig Copeland.
Council agreed to wait until their Sept. 26 council meeting to provide CLAS with the funding in hopes that the organization's meeting with AHS in mid-September works in their favour.
