Bill to create state office for emergency medical services passes house, passage uncertain in senate

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: The state of Minnesota could get a new office to regulate ambulance and other emergency medical services. That's if the State Senate and Governor agree on a DFL proposal that passed the State House yesterday. Supporters of the bill say it will help address a range of problems that are plaguing EMS, especially in rural areas of the state.

An audit of the existing board that regulates these services found the state needs to plug holes in staffing, funding, and oversight to make sure Minnesotans can count on getting emergency help when they call for it. Republican Representative Jeff Backer is a volunteer EMT and a member of a task force dedicated to resolving these issues. He voted against the bill saying it ties up too much money in government bureaucracy instead of funding services.

JEFF BACKER: We heard on the House floor here today, we need an agency because we can trust them. We could probably spend four or five hours on listing all the agencies that have not been good stewards of taxpayers' money.

CATHY WURZER: A separate bipartisan proposal would help fund rural EMS services. Joining us right now to talk about the bill that passed the House yesterday is its lead author, DFL Representative John Huot of Rosemount. Representative, welcome to the program.

JOHN HUOT: Thank you, Cathy. I look forward to talking with you about it.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you. I'm glad you could take the time. Well, we've talked about the situation when it comes to rural EMS before here on the program with folks who are actually out in the field, but from your perspective, what do you see as the biggest problems?

JOHN HUOT: It's a collage of different problems across the state. Now I also come from the field. I've just been out of it for 10 years, but that's what frustrated me the most is when I left the field, the same problems were there. And they had-- this board actually had remedied it.

They thought they could bring in military medics that they could train up to be in civilian medics. They had all this and then the state did put money into it at that time, but when I was actually elected and appointed to this board by the speaker, it got worse. And I had services from all over the state calling me. I had the EMS regions calling me.

I even had employees of the board calling me saying, we need to do something because we're not getting where we need to go. And then I started going out around the state by myself in my first term and having supper with a lot of my former colleagues in different parts of the state. And they said, yeah, people are leaving. They're not replacing them. The training dollars aren't there.

And this really frustrates me because I'm going what's going on? And then what was more devastating is then I talked to a chief up in northern Minnesota, and he told me that we have recorded and documented response times of 90 minutes. And the average response time was up in the 30 to 60 to sometimes 70. And I'm going, this is not good. And then I wanted to dig into it more. And then I dug into the board more and that's kind of where the audits came out.

CATHY WURZER: Are you pointing to the Board Representative as being really the big issue here?

JOHN HUOT: Yeah. And I don't want to sit here and point. Those are really good people that volunteered to be on the board or that were appointed by the board, but the board is not effective. We need some way to move forward with Minnesota. I mean, Minnesota is not the only state struggling from this. Talking with the governor's office and the governor, he's hearing this at the national governor's level.

And we can do better in Minnesota. We usually are innovative. We think outside the box. And then I started interviewing people, like my good friend and colleague, Representative Backer said, well, we didn't hear this at the task force. I'm the chair of that task force. And I go, no, we didn't.

But as legislators, that's what we are elected to do is critically think through what the solution is. And you have to go to the root. I know that they want money and I think there's going to be money included, but we need to go to the root. And then we need to look at, in this bill, it does put a new office in place, as you talked about, but it also does something else. We're going to start looking at what worked in the metro.

When I was first in 911, I worked for Maplewood Fire, which had the sprint medic model or fly medic that basically was ran by the police department and it really worked well because the police are out on patrol and they can go right to the scene, and the volunteers would come and fill in. We've never tried that in rural Minnesota.

And my Senate colleague, Judy Seeberger, who is an active medic right now, I tossed it by her. And she said, that probably might be a good thing to try. And so we know we have two extremely hot spots in the state. And they're listed in the bill. One is in Otter Tail County, the other one is up in--

CATHY WURZER: Saint Louis.

JOHN HUOT: Up in the Ely tower area.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah. Saint Louis County.

JOHN HUOT: Yep. And we said, you know what? Let's not only do that. Let's call these out because both those areas are high recreation areas and we wanted to make sure that we pointed towards that because like in Rosemount, we have great ambulance service. I get great response. But when those people go to their cabins, or go fishing, or do what Minnesotans do, they also expect that, and it's not happening. Sorry. I rambled on there, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Well, that's OK. I mean, I understand we have a pilot program in Saint Louis and Otter Tail Counties that would kind of dovetail what you experienced in the Twin Cities. I want to get back to this state office idea. Why do you think another state office would improve things? I mean, the state agency, the board, didn't do very well. So why? Perhaps Representative Backer has a point here. Why would another state office improve things?

JOHN HUOT: Yeah, I disagree with Representative Backer respectively. This needs the attention of us. It needs the attention of the governor. This board sat over on University Avenue and did its own thing and no one watched it. And what really frustrated me is there were legislators assigned to this that didn't go because they're usually the watchdog of it.

We as legislators are part to blame here. We need to make sure that we keep an eye on this. This has to be elevated. It has to be elevated to where it's at.

The other thing that made me mad is during COVID. This department was way off until I started saying, governor, you need to have them in the room. And this really puts them at the forefront.

Most states have it, like, buried in the Department of Health where it was for us for years, but because this board has not-- and the board maybe didn't have the power or authority they felt or whatever-- has not really performed to the level that this really needs. This needs attention. It needs funding. It needs a lot of things.

And it needs to be on the eye of the state. And most of our boards, they operate-- and the other thing about this that is really strange, why this was having a board, this division covers a lot. It covers commerce. It covers public safety. It covers health.

CATHY WURZER: So it sounds like--

JOHN HUOT: It covers pensions.

CATHY WURZER: It sounds like--

JOHN HUOT: Go ahead.

CATHY WURZER: It sounds like you think that a state office specifically dedicated to EMS would be the way to go. Say, I want to ask you a little bit about the funding part of this because that is, of course, a key, as you mentioned earlier in the conversation. The funding is still being negotiated. Senate Minority Leader Johnson told us yesterday it is a priority in bonding negotiations. Are you OK with that? What are you hearing from your party on that?

JOHN HUOT: I'm not in those negotiations. I know that this is a priority to the speaker and the governor. And they are looking for every way possible to help EMS. Again, a number that was thrown out was 120 million. And I asked, I went around the state saying, what's that number made up of? And no one still, including Representative Backer, you heard him talk about it on the floor yesterday, articulate that for us. What is this for?

I'm OK spending money on this, but here's the bottom line is that we also know that if we don't put guardrails on that money that all of a sudden we'll have consultants flooding into Minnesota to tell these ambulance services what to do or we'll have them do other things with it. We need to make sure that any investments go towards response and go towards building the bench. I said that a number of times yesterday on the floor. We need to get-- you know, EMTs, it costs $1,600 to go to class right now and get their license. We need to help them so they can help us.

CATHY WURZER: All right, Representative Huot, thank you so much for your time.

JOHN HUOT: Thank you, Cathy. And I appreciate covering it.

CATHY WURZER: We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens at the end of session here. That's DFL Representative John Huot.