BY TRACY LEE TATE
Special to the Times
The Union County Board of Commissioners and the Clerk of Court and Comptroller work hard every year to see that each department gets the budget it needs to operate well and improve where possible.
It is a great help to the county when departments that have the capability of bringing funds into county coffers does so, with the money going into the general fund, where it can be disbursed as needed for situations where money outside a department’s budget is needed for an emergency purchase.
Not only does this help the county government, it also helps keep ad valorem taxes paid by county residents low, without the need for increases. Not all departments operate in a way that will allow them to be paid for their services, but those that do are encouraged to make the effort to do so.
Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is one of the departments that can gain income from transport agreements with FDOC and Lake Butler Hospital and insurance billing.
There are also quite a few grants, appropriations, Medicaid and opioid settlement monies available that can be used for special projects and purchases.
The entire EMS budget is made up of about $500,000 per year from the general fund and about $300,000 per year from the special assessment that all taxpayers pay as a part of their ad valorem taxes.
The county also pursues grants, appropriations and other income sources.
Department head Toby Witt sets the budget up in a profit and loss structure and has been working to improve insurance billing and transfer income since he was hired three years ago, and it seems to be working.
At the October meeting of the board, he announced that, in the previous year (2023-24), his department had brought in over $1 million (in the year before Witt started the department only collected about $600,000). It has increased every year since he has headed up the department.
This has been done through increased accuracy, completeness and timeliness in insurance billing, with an emphasis on getting the money owed from the insurance companies and improved billing for hospital and DOC transfers.
“Increased billings offsets the need to ask for more money from the general fund when we have a problem,” Witt said. “We are working towards not needing any money from the general fund.
Witt reported that the department’s needs from the general fund when he first started was $800,000; now it is $500,000. He said he hopes to only need $300,000 next year.
“We are still providing the same, or better, level of service and are improving while taking less funding from the taxpayers,” Witt said. “We have a total of 20 employees, full-time and part-time) and see 2,000 patients a year. As with any workplace, we occasionally have issues between employees, but we are working hard to reduce that as much as possible. As for the people we serve, we only get an average of four complaints a year. We have good people and we have worked to see that we are a good paying county, where employees come and stay instead of just staying for a few years to gain experience and then leaving for better pay.”
The department is dedicated to getting the monies owed it, but Witt stressed that they do not do hard collections on uninsured patients who require service.
“We are all family, employees, county residents, and their loved ones, and we try to treat everyone in that way,” Witt said.
