Committee recommends Elyria continue outsourcing EMS

A committee has recommended that Elyria continue to contract with LifeCare to provide the city's ambulance services, citing the high projected cost of bringing the service in-house. Elyria's EMS Review Committee voted unanimously to send its recommendation that the city continue to contract with LifeCare Ambulance to City Council for consideration. Committee Chairman Brad Armstrong, I-5th Ward, said that after months of reviewing the costs and work necessary to move ambulance services within the Elyria Fire Department, it became clear to him that the price tag of the project was simply too high for the city. Council moved to create the committee earlier this year at the behest of Armstrong, after an outside consulting firm had conducted a study and found that Elyria could potentially benefit from bringing EMS service in-house. Armstrong argued at the time that it would be a waste for the city not to have a real discussion about the study, but he said that as the plans became more concrete the ultimate price continued to climb. "With everything these past few months on this committee and doing the research, I can only speak for myself, reaching out to our fire chief and talking to other cities and see what they are doing, it is coming to a realization that we can't afford this," Armstrong said Thursday. At a prior meeting in April, the committee did not receive an exact estimate of what the total cost to bring EMS service within the city would be, but Safety Service Director Chris Pyanowski, who was a member of the committee, said it would be far more than the $3 million estimated in the city's study. The cost of the new ambulances the city needed alone would likely have run in excess of $2.5 million, and the committee heard that the department would have to add a number of firefighters to fill the program. Pyanowski has made it clear since the discussion began that the administration of Mayor Kevin Brubaker would not support placing a tax levy on the ballot to fund the changeover, and he echoed that stance again on Thursday. "I do not think we can do it without a levy and I would not be in favor of placing a levy on the ballot for this purpose at this time," he said. The review committee was started to serve an advisory role and was expected to make a recommendation for City Council to consider. Councilman Jack Cerra, D-7th Ward, made a motion that the committee recommend the city continue to use a private contractor to provide the city's ambulance services, saying "it is in the best interest of the city financially and from a quality of service standpoint at this time." All the members of the committee who were present voted in favor of recommending the city continue its current practice of contracting out EMS. Elyria is in a four-year contract with LifeCare that will run through 2028, with an optional one-year extension that the parties can agree to. Under that contract, Elyria pays LifeCare $126 for every nontransport emergency medical call — calls where no patient is taken to the hospital — up to an annual maximum of $400,000. Elyria did not hit that maximum in either of the first two years under the contract, paying LifeCare just over $300,000 in 2024 and about $350,000 in 2025. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.