Members of the Derby Storm Ambulance and Rescue Corps are complaining a $15,000 budget cut from the city’s tax board is preventing the organization from refurbishing a 16-year-old ambulance and they took their frustration public last week.
The City of Derby provides a yearly allotment to the Derby Storms, even though the Storms itself is an independent agency.
The yearly allotment, Storm Ambulance and Rescue Chief David Lenart said, is small compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in services the organization provides to the city.
The Storms received $55,000 from the city in 2011, 2012 and 2013. That allotment is about 0.14 percent of Derby’s overall budget, which totals about $37 million.
The Cut
However, the Storms received $40,000 in the current fiscal year, which started July 1. That’s a $15,000 cut to the organization’s budget, Lenart said — and one he didn’t know was coming.
The budget cut, according to Lenart, is preventing his organization from spending $100,000 to refurbish a 16-year-old problem-plagued ambulance.
Click the play button below to hear three minutes from a 20-minute discussion that happened at the July 15 tax board meeting.
The Storms have two ambulances, but one is currently out of service.
Tax board chairman Jim Butler said he — and his fellow elected officials on the board — were under the impression the Storms didn’t need the money to refurbish the ambulance until the next fiscal year, so they held the funds back to keep the city’s bottom line in check.
Tax board member Jeremy Bell and Derby City Treasurer Keith McLiverty had the same recollection.
Lenart, who is running on the Republican line for Alderman, repeatedly questioned where the tax board got that information, because he said it didn’t come from him or Louis Oliwa, the only two members of the Derby Storm Ambulance and Rescue Corps who talked to the tax board as the budget was put together.
“We were cut back to 40 (thousand), with no explanation. We want to know why. We were one of the only agencies cut,” Lenart said. “We need that money. I’ve been operating with one ambulance for about a month now.”
In the end, it looks like the Storms will be able to go to the city’s capital planning committee to get the money it needs to refurbish its ambulance.
But Lenart said his organization’s budget was cut because of a miscommunication — and they’ll start off at a distinct disadvantage when they request funding next year.
Lenart directed his comments and questions to Butler, the tax board’s chairman.
“The bargain you get from us is unbelievable. We’re charging you $55,000 for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of services,” Lenart said.
