SWEETWATER COUNTY The Sweetwater County Commissioners and the cities and towns within the county held an inter-government joint leadership meeting Wednesday night in which ambulance services took the spotlight.
After an hour long discussion regarding ambulance services in the county, no solutions were presented as to how to fund it in both the short-term through the fiscal year, and in the long-term, looking out years into the future.
The Current Situation
Tuesday, the Sweetwater County Commissioners presented letters to the Rock Springs City Council and the Green River City Council that requested the two cities to help fund ambulance services for the upcoming fiscal year.
GREEN RIVER – The Green River City Council were told tonight that they will have to help fund county-wide ambulance services or else Sweetwater Medics will no longer have the funding to respond to 911 calls.
Sweetwater County Commissioner Jeff Smith presented the Council with a letter that requests the City of Green River and the City of Rock Springs provide 50 percent of the funding, while the County covers the other half. Green River would be responsible for one-third of the cities’ portion of the funding while Rock springs would be responsible for two-thirds. The request from the ambulance providers to provide the service for fiscal year 2021-2022 is about $1.2 million.
SWEETWATER COUNTY Ambulance service funding in Sweetwater County has become difficult, and if Rock Springs and Green River do not start chipping in, Sweetwater Medics will no longer respond to 911 calls by the end of the month.
The Sweetwater County Commissioners announced in December 2020 they would no longer be able to fund ambulance services without help from the cities. The Commissioners said they are terminating the current service contracts and all associated funding with Sweetwater Medics and Castle Rock Ambulance Service on March 31, 2021.
In January, the Commissioners met with the cities and towns in Sweetwater County and established a committee to explore solutions for funding ambulance services. Commissioner Jeff Smith said that committee is hard at work, but a longterm solution has still not been found at this point.