Butler County commissioners on Wednesday, Sept. 10, told two out-of-county ambulances — services that serve parts of Butler County — to get their commissioners involved in their requests to be part of the paramedic training program.

Officials from Mercer County-based Superior Ambulance Service and Armstrong County-based Freeport Fire-EMS asked the commissioners to be included in Butler County’s paramedic training program.

The commissioners created the program in May using $90,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds and used the same pool of money last year to create an emergency medical technician training program to address a shortage of emergency medical professionals in the county. Those who complete the programs are required to work for emergency medical services in the county for certain periods of time.

Austin Burns, of Superior Ambulance in Grove City, said the service is located a half-mile outside of Butler County and primarily serves residents in Butler County.

“I just want to see the money utilized to help all of Butler County, not just the south-central part of Butler County that seems like is always benefiting from it.

“I would really like to see us be able benefit from it and I get that we serve Venango County and Lawrence County and Mercer County too, and you want to keep the money here, but there’s also Butler County agencies that are responding outside of Butler County primarily that are benefiting from this,” Burns said.

He said Venango County-based Emlenton Area EMS is in the same situation as Superior.

Leslie Osche, commissioners chairwoman, said the ambulance services should talk to their county commissions first and then the Butler County commissioners would join the conversation.

“We would love for you to initiate conversations with the commissioners in your counties and we’d be happy to join them in support a collaboration. Get that started,” she said.

Commissioner Kevin Boozel, a volunteer firefighter and EMT in Harrisville, said the county has invested $2 million in the paramedic and EMT training programs. He said the commissioners will support the ambulance services, but they have to get the ball rolling with their county commissioners.

“Get it started. We’ll be happy to come and join in that discussion. Our moves happened because our providers came to us and said this is our problem,” Osche said.

Boozel said he called the Mercer County commissioners on Tuesday after he received many phone calls about the matter, but hasn’t heard from them.

Ryan Sweeny, of Freeport EMS, said the station is 1,700 feet from the Butler County line and is the primary service provider for 5,000 residents in Buffalo and Winfield townships. He said discussions about the paramedic program have been stated with the Armstrong County commissioners.

He asked about Butler County ambulance services serving areas outside the county, such as Cranberry Township EMS serving Beaver County and the Slippery Rock Volunteer Fire Company EMS serving Lawrence County.

The Butler County commissioners had to “draw the expenditure line” somewhere, Osche said.

“I feel that the line should be drawn at those services that provide primary coverage to Butler County residents rather than those that are physically located within Butler County, because unfortunately right now our 5,000 residents are paying taxes for the service they are not receiving,” Sweeny said.

He said the program is negatively effecting Freeport EMS because one employee wants to enter the program, but would have to leave the service to fulfill the program requirements.

Osche told him to start with the Armstrong County commissioners.

Boozel said paramedic training normally costs $14,000 to $16,000.

“We got it down to $8,000. If any of those counties want to put up that sponsorship, they can come to our class. Talk to your commissioners. It’s a hard conversation for us that we’ve invested the $2 million and they’ve invested nada,” he said.

Osche said providing emergency medical service is the responsibility of municipalities and the county created the programs to help municipalities because the commissioners recognized a crisis exists in rural emergency medical service.

Commissioner Kim Geyer said the county asked the state Legislature to help address the need for emergency medical professionals, and a task force created by the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania wrote a report about the issue.

“It fell on deaf ears,” Geyer said. “Our state legislators did not make any moves to rectify this and address it.”

Municipalities are responsible for emergency medical services, but the commissioners tried to address the issue knowing they wouldn’t immediately be able to help ambulance services that work across the county border, Geyer said.

Osche said the county continues to study the issue by looking at ambulance calls and call volumes, and is looking for a way to financially sustain the programs for the future. Current funding is enough to run the program for about three years, she said. There have been three EMT classes and the first paramedic class just got stated, she added. Both programs are taught at Butler County Community College.

The ARPA money has to be spent by 2026, Boozel said.

“Each of your municipalities had ARPA money. They didn’t reinvest in you. We did,” Boozel said. “I’m not calling them out. We went through a process. No other county did what we did.”

Osche said the programs grew from the goal of ensuring ambulance coverage in the northern part of the county, and are not focused on the south-central part of the county.