TEAS Update June 19

Updates

So since my last update, here are the things I've been working on:

1. Going around the County: I've been able to have some conversations at the city level, as they are members of the TEAS, Inc corporation as well, and should also be receiving the documents that I've been requesting from the county. I've found, so far, much more sympathetic ears there to try to get access to these public records hopefully faster than the alternatives. Lafayette and West Lafayette account for the most runs from TEAS by far, and they have the legal right to get these documents if they've not already been provided. I've got a few things going on that end that I should hear back about in the next week or two, so stay tuned for that.
   

2. Public Access Counselor: Because the county has denied multiple of my public records requests for documents they're legally required to receive from TEAS, Inc on the grounds that there are no records in their possession and those records are only in the possession of Director Murtaugh (Purportedly not Commissioner Murtaugh), I've been working on putting together the formal complaint to get a ruling. I've been told this is likely to take months to get a ruling on, and in the end this is non-binding. It will, however, give me ammunition to ask the court to have the county pay for the legal fees associated with a lawsuit if there's a ruling in my favor on the complaint.
   

3. State Board of Accounts: I've been doing some reading through the requirements of organizations like TEAS, Inc to be audited by the State Board of Accounts. In this case, TEAS, Inc seems to fit the bill for potential audit by the SBOA. It's routinely being given appropriated taxpayer funds to perform its operations in what is clearly a not-a-contractor agreement, yet does not appear to be getting audited by the SBOA currently and doesn't have any language in its by-laws that it looks like the State wants organizations of this type to have. This coming week I'll be reaching out to them to ask questions, make sure TEAS, Inc is on their radar, and see what options there are there.
   

4. Other public records requests: I've now additionally put in public records requests for:

   1. The certified mail notifications required to be sent to the county and cities for annual and routine corporation member meetings.

   2. Records of the expenditures the county has made to TEAS for the capital and equipment funds that are outlined in the TEAS, Inc by-laws to better understand how much money is being sent to TEAS each year.
      

5. Finding a Lawyer: I've started doing some research for finding a lawyer outside of the county to approach with all of this. Hoping to start reaching out to one soon.

So, even though you've not seen me at Commissioner public meetings this month, I'm very much still busy in the background moving this forward.

On the response times front...

In one of my conversations surrounding the city fire departments, I was made aware that both the Lafayette and West Lafayette fire departments have had their professional firefighters get EMT-B certified so they can make the national standard of being on scene within 8 minutes 90% of the time.

So, if you've ever dialed 911 for an ambulance and you get a fire truck that arrives, this is why. Since TEAS can't actually meet the on-scene standard, and the cities don't really have any power in TEAS, the two cities are:

1. Spending extra city tax dollars to train all firefighters for EMT-Basic certification

2. Putting unnecessary wear and tear on fire trucks for non-fire emergencies to get a firefighter EMT on scene to meet the standard but then having no capability to transport that person to a hospital when needed. They have to sit and wait for TEAS to arrive with an ambulance.

So, this is an interesting twist to the response time data from the county level. Because there's no mechanism for this scenario in the county dispatch data, this wasn't able to be seen in the dispatch data from the county and likely isn't reflected in the state dataset that I pulled originally, because those were records for TEAS alone.

This is a good news/bad news scenario:

• The good news is that there is an EMT getting on-scene within the city limits of Lafayette and West Lafayette within about 4 minutes today to stabilize people, so that's not nearly as bad as was originally thought.

  • This doesn't change runs that require advanced life support (ALS) rather than basic life support (BLS). The calls requiring ALS are still waiting on TEAS to arrive.

  • This doesn't change anything for people outside of the city limits of Lafayette and West Lafayette. Their response times are reflected appropriately in the analysis I've done up to this point.
    

• The bad news is that it looks like both Lafayette and West Lafayette are having to spend a bunch of extra money making up for TEAS.

So, the end result looks to be that the county is sending money to TEAS with no clear objectives of what it's for, TEAS isn't appropriately delivering on the ambulance services, the county doesn't appear to be appropriately independently monitoring the situation on the ground, and then because TEAS is not delivering, our city tax dollars are being used to bandage over TEAS's poor response times.

This is why this county needs a complete review of the entire EMS that we have in place today. We need to take a look at all of the components, whether at the county level or the city level and make a comprehensive overhaul where needed. If the only way to meet response times in the unincorporated townships of the county is for townships to start their own EMS, then the county should be looking at how they can help make that happen. This is exactly why these public records need to see the light of day- so we can see what decisions are being made and hold our elected officials (The County Commissioners) accountable for these things they're supposed to be overseeing.