State rejects ten-year extention of CalTahoe JPA contract

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - For months the California Tahoe Emergency Services Operations Authority (CTESOA) has been working on a new ten-year contract to provide emergency ambulance services in the Lake Tahoe area of El Dorado County and northwestern Alpine County, just as they have since 2001. They have been providing these services through a Joint Powers Authority (JPA).

The Cal Tahoe JPA were the only ones to respond to El Dorado County's (EDC) Request For Proposal (RFP) for ambulance service earlier this year and were feeling good about being granted the new contract.

That is until the California Emergency Medical Services Agency (State EMS Agency) decided the County didn't use a fair competitive process when putting out the RFP.

"We have been using a competitive process, but our plan did not specify that we would," said Sue Hennike, EDC's Deputy Chief Administrative Officer.

When the State EMS Agency disapproved the County's EMS plan, the County appealed. The case was headed to a hearing with an Administrative Law Judge when the County decided to enter a settlement with the State.

Ambulance service in the county is split into two areas, County Service Area 7-CSA 7, and County Service Area 3 - CSA 3. The east slope which contains Meyers and South Lake Tahoe rests in CSA 3 with El Dorado Hills, Cameron Park and that area in CSA 7.

The settlement provides that EDC will rewrite their EMS plan to specify that they will use a competitive process to select an exclusive ambulance provider within the Tahoe South Shore service area in CSA 3.

"Unfortunately, we could not get the State to accept the RFP we had already conducted in CSA 3 so the settlement requires us to do a new RFP and award a contract as a result of that solicitation by August 31, 2021," said Hennike. "We had negotiated a good contract with Cal Tahoe JPA and have been very happy with their services for the past 18 years. We were looking forward to getting into a ten-year agreement, but the State would not agree to it."

Instead, the Cal Tahoe JPA gets a two-year contract.

"We were disappointed with the news of a shorter contract and bidding again in 2021," said Cal Tahoe JPA Executive Director Ryan Wagoner. "However, I feel confident our excellent track record of providing high-level EMS care over the past 18 years will allow us to secure the contract once again. We look forward to continuing our partnership with El Dorado County well into the future."

Also in the settlement was EDC referring to their model as a "public utility" one, something which they now need to stop. In a Public Utility Model system, the government is a "purchaser" of dispatchers, emergency medical technicians and paramedic providers from an EMS provider. In most cases, this is a private (for-profit) ambulance company. In the ownership of a Public Utility Model, the community retains control of EMS system capital assets and accounts receivable through daily oversight while the EMS provider manages the day-to-day operations of the service and provides the system with properly trained providers.

The State acknowledges that the County is a qualified ambulance service provider for County Service Area 7 on the West Slope and has exclusive rights to provide the service in that area and that the County may continue to own the receivables and perform the billing function throughout the county.

"We had negotiated a good contract with Cal Tahoe JPA and have been very happy with their services," said Hennike. "We were looking forward to getting into a ten-year agreement, but the State would not agree to it."

It is back to the beginning of the process again for Wagoner and his team.

There was no financial settlement in the deal with the state, just a change to the processes involved.