EMSA or TFD?

[shadows]

I suppose I am one of those who questions the need for all the highly educated paramedics making 60% of the runs on non emergence transfers.  The city transportation system once provided a limited transfer costing only a dollar or so not in the hundreds of dollars.  

I am also familiar with companies that furnish medical personnel on daily or weekly or monthly basis.  In the beginning the unions were obligated to furnish by their contracts the trained workers (I realize worker is a nasty word) to employers.   Now such unions of public employees are not obligated to furnish any training services.  The plumbers, pipefiters, ironworkers, boilermakers, electricians and others had their own training programs.  

I have a copy in the files of the $50,000 dollar study on how to more efficiently operate the city.  It's conclusion was we have too many chiefs and not enough Indians.  We solved that by increasing the budget and hiring more Indians.  The copies of this survey I am sure was what helped to emit the gases that forced the trash burner to close or be repaired.

[Jason]

You and do agree on a few things. Most of the nonemergency transfers could be done by a lesser trained and more cost efficient entity. Right now it is on the contract Paramedics plus has with the city that they are done by them. Now some of the transfers need continued care during transport.
EMSA/Paramedics Plus has made it the policy to provide continued training and continued education to make their medics the best. This info is available to those who ask. Paramedics and EMT's are required by the State dept of health to provide proof of training every 2 years to renew licenses. I do understand your point though.
EMSA has had the same "chief" since its inception the only thing that has chnaged is the contractors. Every 5 years the EMS service for Tulsa is up for review and for potential bids. But every month a budget is turned into the city for review to make sure the money is not being spent in the wrong way. EMSA has not asked for an increase insubsidy for many years because the excess funds that had been generated before the insurance companies began cutting costs were bieng used to support EMSA. Paramedics Plus paid back to EMSA last year almost a million dollars in excess profits. As well as purchased several ambulances so EMSA would not have too.
I understand that sometimes the wrong people are making the decisionss in Tulsa and money is not being used as it should, but this is not one of those areas.

[shadows]

I can understand the failure for an average person to be aware of where the budget money winds up.   Hundreds of pages composed by several little kingdoms to spend one half a billon dollars of the taxpayers money.  And citizen can protest the budget in an appearance before the councilors.  You are given 5 minutes to go through 300 pages of requests for the distribution of $500,000,000 dollars,  Just divided the approximately 375,000 residents and get the cost per child though adults.  Or we have approximately 150,000 city water meters which can be  used to obtain the average cost.  

The pensions will become another item to be considered as more employees are retiring early from  one job and re-dipping into the proposed new budgets.

When you do a little arithmetic and you say Paramedic Plus reimbursed the city a million dollars just to be good buddies, them it raises a question if they have overcharged the citizens through a private corporation.   They are shore congenial buying the rolling stock from their funds when the city budget provides them,

The budget should be in the libraries by now.   EMSA is by no means a hospital nor a operating room but it's intent as sold by the Doctor's wife to the public was for transportation.   In cases of cardiac arrest, in most cases if conformed, the 8 minute response time is very critical and in most instants fatal.

The FD's are assigned to districts to provide the earliest response.  Lets us turn the FD over to EMSA and reduce the double dipping.  

         

[Jason]

I was trying to be polite and come to an agreement between you and I but bow you are being an donkey. It is no secrest that Paramedics Plus is a for profit company. However they have committed to limiting, by contract< the amount of profit they can make. Everything else goes back to the city. That is pretty congenial. The cities budget is all screwed up. Again not a secret. They bought the new equipment because the city did not have the excess money to do it. How is that a bad thing? I told you the required response times, not the average response time of just over 5 minutes. The fire stations are strategically placed? Then why is it that EMSA arrives half or more times before them? It is a proven misconception that TFD always arrives before EMSA.
So, using your math, an increase of $10.27 per person per year in Tulsa, is what it would take to fund EMSA each for the next 5 years. I an not sure but that sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Especially when, using the same math, TFD running EMS would be more like $37.33 plus pensions. EMSA is again the way to go. Thanks for proving my argument again.

[shadows]

I am not sure that in the topic discussed that it is not with a shill.  Your arithmetic could be improved with a $3.00 hand calculator.  We can achieve the ultimate solution when the 50 some thousand workers, living in Tulsa, that are employed in the city of Tulsa, thousands as direct employees of the city and the 100 thousand workers who drive into the city each day, from the suburbs, are taxed enough to pay for the infrastructure and upkeep of our little kingdoms.

It is not in search of fore-sight but of hind-sight to save a society from destroying it's self.  Having sat through the budget planning meetings. I find the system beyond rational think when statements are made as " If there is a surplus of funds needed it can be transferred into other departments during the budget year."  (Same is indicated in your post)

A person just walking into the office who had came from one of the little kingdoms offices.  Without any mention of pending answers he made the statement that he had suggest a way for the kingdom to save money.   He said he was told " If  we don't spend all our budgeted money they are required to reduce our next year budget by the amount we save on our present allotment".

Lets save the city from the duplications and double-dipping.   Consolidate the little kingdoms and quit the pie-in-the-sky request for the working poor's money that they need for them to survive,        
       

[RecycleMichael]

Shadows...why do you hate city government so much?

Every post you make has included attacks on the city and anyone associated with them. Your posts have been this way no matter who was in power.

Tell us the story.

[shadows]

It is not my intent to find fault in government but it only to make available the inequities that exist.  History  list a long line of governments that fail the citizens. The truth to some people becomes offensive.  Expressive it maybe offensive to those who spend their lives smelling the roses in the city halls on the poor working people's money, while we have the homeless and starving children as we look the other way.  Those people we moved out of tent city sure were not there by their choice.  

Yes we are sending our youth to their deaths to reinstall a government that was removed by force and now we are using force to reinstall that government in Iraq at a great loss of human life.

Is there some reason that the people should not be told of how their government reacts, local, state and national as they stand in line for donated food at the churches?  

Tell us why they should not be told of the double dipping, high cost of duplicated department heads, and over budgeted divisions of all governments.  Tell us why the average person should not know that when city employees retire from one city job with a penson off times they get another salaried city job?

I only seek for the truth to be known.  I am not aware that the truth ever hurt but allows everyone to choose their own direction of travel.    

[Jason]

I believe it your intent to find fault in our goernment. While I agree it is far from perfect, I also believe that sometimes things are not as black and white as you see them. I belive that EMSA being kept the way it is was a good thing. I hope that you will see that someday. However, I do belive that many of your points are valid. Iraq is a stupid, now, pointless venture that is the work of a mad man. I am an Iraq war vet. I spent 11 1/2 months outside of Fallujah and Ramadi. I have seen the loss of lives that were there only for the gain of corporation and those attatched to them. I have also seen the good that is never shown on your television. The people who could have a chance at a free life like you have. If only our "leaders" would be truly concerned about it. It is no secret that the leaders of our country are often only in government for their own gain.

By the way my calculator cost $19.95.  [8D]

[RecycleMichael]

I currently do work for 12 governments (I have a nightmare job). There are exceptions, but generally every person I know who works for the city, the county, the state and the federal government are dedicated, committed, underpaid and under-appreciated for their work.

The trash guys want to pick up your trash, the water guys work hard making sure our water is safe and always there when you turn the faucet, the fire-fighters I know would risk their life over and over again for any of us and the budget people to the person answering the phone at city hall do their job almost perfect every work day of the year.

I have seen problems and spent a short portion of my life focusing on the few bad ones that didn't fulfill the public trust. But I know of so many more that work so hard that I get offended for them when "shadows" throws out innuendo attacking government workers.

I have also followed local government longer than most of you. As a teenager, my mother was the city hall beat reporter for the Tulsa World. My wife and I met when she had the same beat for the Tulsa Tribune.

I remember "shadows" from all those years ago. He has always been this way and just wants to believe that it is all a conspiracy to tax the poor so certain government officials get rich.

I had a conversation last night with two of our city councilors about how we fund needed work for EMSA and other safety programs. Both councilors said that the last thing they wanted to do is to raise utility rates because of the impact on our citizens, especially the elderly ones like "shadows". If he only knew how much they cared about him and everyone else in his situation, I think he would sing a different tune.

[shadows]

Somewhere I get the idea we are not taking about the same city but seems to be a story of "The tale of two cities".   When one hangs their hat in the city hall and takes a deep breath of the pink gases there they see a rose colored world that many of the working poor paying the bills, are too hungry or cold to see.  I believe there is a utility raise coming already on the books.  Course some of the councilor's may not be aware of it as they only say "yes" to all proposals and "is my check ready"

I could cite incidents that I have encountered over the decades when cows grazed at Third and Lewis.  There is the wide street where the streetcars returned back down town nearby.  I have seen many incidents whereas there have been foolish operation where employees were told to go hide until they were needed or time to go home.  But the city grew and most of all the bureaucracies grew twice as fast.  EMSA is only one operation that combining it with other operations and using the standby personnel for muscle power could save dollars to make sure that no child went to bed cold and hungry.  Few can remember or does not want to remember when the city did not need to collect sales taxes to operate on.  But it is understandable that if there is a way to collect more money there is always a way to form a bureaucracy to make the regressive tax on the poor justified.

Tax the poor and give it to the rich is the logo we have come to.  The spread between the over salaried non-productive department heads and the productive workers is a widening gap which we should address before we face another riot or a street to street civil war like is happening in Bagdad.

I am sorry I do not believe everything I write but I lay it face up on the table and hope some who might read it will heed the storm clouds that are forming.   I would like to write of some of the incidents that have been a total waste of the citizens tax money but if I did all this would be deleted from the board.  It may be anyway.

If you paid $19 dollars for your calculator you should have waited and got your change.[][][][]  lol    

[rwarn17588]

<shadows wrote:

I am sorry I do not believe everything I write but I lay it face up on the table and hope some who might read it will heed the storm clouds that are forming.

<end clip>

If you do not believe in everything you write, then you are a liar or a propagandist, neither of which I particularly like.

Say what you mean, dammit.

And quit cloaking everything in tortured metaphors and purple prose. If you're going to persuade people, use something that remotely resembles plain speaking.

[shadows]

Sorry I cannot disagree with you more.  We are a nation of liars.  The prez' lies to us.  The senate lies to us.  The repres' lie to us.  The local politicians that claim they represent the people. lie to us.  The attorney before the court that defends a client that knows is guilty, lies to the court and the people.   The person who serves on city boards that says they have no inherent interest and will serve without compensation could be lying to the people.  The time for taxes are again due and there are many that  will lie on their forms.  When city employees claim they need to retire but take another job could be lying to the people as they are only after double dipping in the till.

When I try to point out in alarm that the mighty Athens and Rome fell in the same trash heap, as history records, could I be lying?

When it is written that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, was that lying?

Time to wake up because the alarm has gone off three times already.

[rwarn17588]

So if you admit that you lie, why should we bother taking you seriously?

Considering that the voters tossed out a bunch of politicians in Washington because of their corruption and lying, I think they are more aware of the consequences. Sorry, I don't buy the cynical "everyone is liars" baloney.

And if you do, why are you bothering to speak up on this forum?

If you can't be truthful, go back to being silent. You'll do the country less damage that way.

[Jason]

It is very sad that we do live in a time where it seems as though all politicians are only representing themselves. I believe that some are in it for our intrests. The problem with shadows is that he has lost all hope that our government may actually do something in the best interest of the people. It is a shame really. It is our responsibility though to question our leaders. If we don't then we will be taken advantage of. I commend Shadows for keeping an eye on things butI would caution that not everything in our government is bad. Also that some "beauracracies" (to use his word) or necessary. It is a method of checks and balances.
I wonder, does he even believe what he says or is he just trying to get us all worked up?

[shadows]

Quoted from the old 66 route.
shadows is that he has lost all hope that our government may actually do something in the best interest of the people. It is a shame really.

I suppose you are going to add "all the people" in your prayers.