Swan Valley emergency medical services may be handed to Idaho Falls

Emergency medical services in Swan Valley could be controlled by Idaho Falls through a decision from Bonneville County.

In Swan Valley, the emergency medical services have a long history of responding quickly to the needs in the area.

“We can do it, we’ve always done it and we’d like to continue doing it,” said Dean Philbrick, the Swan Valley fire chief.

They may not get to.

When Swan Valley approached Bonneville County to increase their budget to about $400,000, the county approached Idaho Falls to take on Swan Valley’s emergency services.

“They’ve had to dip into their reserves because what the county’s been giving them isn’t enough money and there isn’t enough money for the county to give them so that’s why we were asked to do that,” said Dave Hanneman, Idaho Falls fire chief.

“My commissioners have gone back at a request from the county, they’ve gone back and they’ve done a proposal to re-evaluate into a three-year plan, we can pull the same amount of money and over three years recoup our losses” said Philbrick.

Currently Bonneville County supplies $335,000 to Swan Valley.

Swan Valley employs 20 part-time employees from across the area, some of them come from Idaho Falls.

“It’s a real shock when all of a sudden you find out your whole system over all these years is going to change over dollar bills,” said Philbrick.

Swan Valley says their cost is $19,000 per employee and that the new plan would cost Idaho Falls $74,000 per employee.

In Idaho Falls they would staff seven firefighters for the new program.

“Even though our firefighters cost more than their part-time folks we would only need seven -a part of that as opposed to the 20,” said Hanneman.

The system Idaho Falls proposed takes $568,000 including Swan Valley’s current budget, this will put seven ambulances in use across the area.

Idaho Falls fire says this approach will also make sure more calls are taken care of.

If this goes through, it’s going to be a big change for Swan Valley from their current system.

The county believes it’s going to be more cost efficient and Idaho Falls fire believes it will help in the efficiency of emergency situations.

Bonneville county will make a decision this Thursday at 1:30 P.M.