Our Mission
The Skamania County Hospital District #1 Board of Commissioners are elected representatives of the communities that Skamania EMS and Rescue serves. Collectively the Board understands their responsibility to the taxpayers and work to maintain a financially sustainable service for their district.
Commissioner Meetings
The Board of Commissioners for Skamania County Public Hospital District generally meets once each month to transact the business of the district. When a scheduled meeting falls on a federally recognized holiday, the meeting date is adjusted.
Meetings are held at Station 7-1, 253 SW First Street, Stevenson, Washington. Please see our Guidance for Attendance at Business Meetings here
The meeting schedule is as shown below, to include pre-scheduled public hearings and workshops. On meeting days that include a public hearing or workshop, the hearing or workshop will begin promptly at 2:30pm and the business meeting will commence immediately following:
2024
| January 8 *Rescheduled to Tuesday, January 16 |
May 20 | September 16 *Budget Workshop, FY25 *Public Hearing, Supplemental 2, FY24 |
| February 12 | June 17 | October 21 Public Hearing, FY25 Budget |
| March 18 Public Hearing, Supplemental Budget 1, FY24 |
July 15 | November 18 |
| April 15 | August 5 (Rescheduled from August 19) | December 16 |
Special Meeting Notices, business meeting agendas and meeting minutes are available for review by our constituents. In an effort to provide these documents in the most efficient and user friendly format, we have indexed them by year. Agendas are provided in draft form and minutes are provided following approval by the Board of Commissioners. Please click here to access these documents.
Organizational Structure
A three member, elected Board of Commissioners, oversees the District. Each Commissioner serves a six-year term. Management of the district, including administration, fiscal activities, policy and staff management are the duties of an acting Superintendent. Four (4) Captains who are charged with oversight of specific divisions (e.g. Medical, Logistics/Safety, Training and Operations), support the Superintendent and ensure efficient and progressive agency operations. Captains provide this oversight in addition to their duties to provide emergency medical services.
Opening the Books
Skamania EMS and Rescue is a municipal agency whose primary source of funding is tax dollars. Collections from tax collections represent approximately 58% of our annual revenue budget. 51% of the overall tax collections are related to our voter approved property tax levies, with 7% being attributed to statutory taxes such as Leasehold Excise and Private Harvest Tax.
Current levies authorized by the voters include a permanent Hospital District Levy and a six-year EMS Levy. Without re-authorization from the voters our EMS levy is set to expire on December 31, 2025. For fiscal year 2023, our Hospital District (consolidated) levy rate is $0.35574326 / per $1,000 of assessed value and is estimated to produce property tax collections of $877,025. Our EMS (consolidated) levy rate is $0.40252620 / per $1,000 of assessed value and is estimated to produce property tax collections of $992,360.
With an annual operating budget of roughly $4.5 million dollars, fees for service, grant dollars and private donations provide the additional funding necessary to operate our agency twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Approximately twenty-seven percent of our annual operating budget comes from fees for service. Our average annual ambulance services bills submitted (for the preceding five-year period) is $1,746,823, and annual collections for the same time period average 44%, or $764,056 per year.
Recognizing the value from our communities support of our tax levies, in 2015 the agency elected to institute a waiver program for residential fees. To this day, the agency is able to waive co-pays and co-insurance fees that would normally be due on residential transports. In short, if you are a resident of Skamania County, we accept the payment your insurance company makes and write off the remainder of your transport bill. Non-residents are not subject to this waiver program and as such, must make arrangements to pay their entire bill. The agency hopes to continue this waiver process as long as possible and would be glad to discuss how the future levy support may impact this program.
Working Together to Improve Efficiency
Skamania EMS and Rescue has worked diligently to build and improve upon partnerships with our fellow emergency response agencies.
In 2018, we instituted a partnership with Skamania County Fire District # 3 (Underwood) to use a portion of Station 3-1 as an emergency response staging location for our crews. In 2020, a similar agreement was developed with Skamania County Fire District # 5 (Skamania), and as a result, we have improved overall response time to 911 calls throughout our communities.
2021 brought forth the opportunity to work with Skamania County Fire District # 1 (Stabler/Carson/Home Valley/Cook/Mill A) to support them in the training and operation arena; which was an expansion to the administrative services they contract us to provide. Skamania EMS and Rescue has continued our training and operations support with with Skamania County Fire District # 3 as well.
Looking forward, Skamania EMS & Rescue is excited to continue these partnerships and build upon the strong network of emergency service response agencies and personnel serving our communities.
18
full-time emergency response staff
3
part-time and volunteer emergency response staff
1,553
total calls for response in 2023
799
total transports in 2023
4
number of stations we use to facilitate emergency medical response
$79,848
average annual savings (five-year period) Skamania County Residents
receive as a result of our Resident Levy Write Off Policy
Public Records
Copies of documents not posted on our website are available by submitting a Public Records Request Form to our agency. All requests will be addressed per agency policy. To access the Public Records Request Form please please click here.
Requests for records and required forms may be submitted as follows:
Via Electronic Mail
superintendent@skamaniaems.com
Via Postal Mail or In Person
Skamania EMS and Rescue
PO BOX 338
253 SW First Street
Stevenson, WA 98648
Please be aware that our administrative office staff is not available twenty-four hours a day. We encourage persons seeking public records, and who wish to drop off their request form, to do so between 8:00am and 5:00pm, Monday through Thursday.
Please email us for further information.
Online Documents
Skamania County EMS strives to make access to administrative documents and financial records that are of interest to the public easily available. In late 2016, our agency started posting the agendas for our Board of Commissioners meetings, and over the course of the last several months we have been working on complying with additional requirements outlined by the Revised Code of Washington.
As we continue to improve upon the way our constituents can access these records, we encourage you to review our work to date. Documents such as meeting notices, agendas, and minutes (once approved by the Board), are currently available online. Additional documents such as our annual budget, and archival media releases will be added within the next few months.
You may access our document library here.
Additional Resources
Documents related to the work of local government agencies are often available in numerous locations. If you are pursuing a research project or looking for an online document, you may consider these additional resources:
Skamania County makes many of their records available online. You can locate marriage licenses, property records and more through the Auditor’s page; tax documents and cadastral maps through the Assessor’s page; and agendas, minutes and audio recordings related to the Board of County Commissioner’s meetings through the Commissioners page.
The Secretary of States Office makes election records and digital archives available online. You may search records by name, keyword or through a detailed search.
The Washington Courts system has a search engine available to review municipal, district, superior and appellate court cases.