Lisbon-Mount Vernon Ambulance looks to establish tax-supported district to ensure ‘rural EMS survival’

MOUNT VERNON — Myrt Bowers remembers a time before the establishment of the Lisbon-Mount Vernon Ambulance Service.

“This old nurse remembers when we didn’t have ambulances. We had funeral directors," said Bowers, speaking last week before the Mount Vernon City Council. “If you had an accident or something that needed a gurney, it was the funeral director who brought you to the emergency room.”

She added that emergency response has evolved by leaps and bounds since she began her nursing career in 1960, thanks in large part to the growth of paramedic training programs and the creation of dedicated ambulance service agencies.

The result of that evolution was clear: quicker emergency response times, increased on-site treatment and improved patient outcomes. But in some of the more rural areas of the state, she said those critical services are now in jeopardy.

Rural EMS departments like the one found in the Lisbon-Mount Vernon area are facing tough decisions about how best to continue service in the face of increased call volumes, stagnating insurance reimbursements and lagging volunteerism.

“Iowa is not exempt from what we’re seeing in a national trend where rural EMS services are starting to close their doors,” said Lisbon-Mount Vernon Ambulance Service director Jacob Lindauer, the service’s only full-time staff member. “We’re seeing a lot of our volunteers start to age out, … and there’s not a lot of backfill.”

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To address that issue, Lindauer said the service is looking to hire additional full-time staff through the creation of an emergency medical services district. Such districts operate by creating a local property tax levy to support EMS operations.

Final establishment of the district will be dependent upon voter approval from those within its proposed boundaries, with a special election on the matter expected in March of 2026. Sixty percent approval will be required for the measure to pass.

The proposed district covers the cities of Mount Vernon and Lisbon; portions of Bertram, Franklin, Linn and Putnam townships in Linn County; and a portion of Cedar township in Johnson County. Exact boundaries are currently being finalized.

Preliminary estimates put the levy rate at roughly 66 cents per $1,000 in assessed property value. If it receives voter approval, that would equate to an annual property tax increase of $61.17 for the owner of a house assessed at $200,000.

“All that funding is going to stay local and continue to provide services to the taxpayers that are directly contributing,” said Lindauer, noting that residents will also elect trustees to oversee the district’s operations.

The Lisbon-Mount Vernon Ambulance Service is made up primarily of volunteers and provides emergency medical services to a population of more than 8,000 people over 150 square miles in and around southeast Linn County.

Lindauer said the goal in hiring additional full-time staff would not be to replace that volunteer force but to add more flexibility given the agency’s more than two-times increase in annual call volumes since 2017.

Currently, the service gets the majority of its operating funds from insurance reimbursements with a small portion coming directly from cities within its service area. Any major capital investment is reliant upon donations and/or grant funding.

It also receives tax funds from Jones County to cover its operations in the county’s southwest corner. Jones County has a county-wide EMS tax, a portion of which is allocated to the Lisbon-Mount Vernon agency.

The EMS district designation being sought in relevant portions of Linn and Johnson counties will provide a similar revenue source to cover operations in those areas to help offset stagnating insurance reimbursement rates and help meet the growing demand for service.

“This isn’t a levy that we’re looking to impose just because we want nice things,” Lindauer said. “It’s really for rural EMS survival.”

Over the past few months — and often with supporters like Bowers in tow — Lindauer has worked to collect the necessary signatures and visit the relevant area government bodies to kickstart the process of getting the matter on the ballot.

The agency also will hold a series of town halls with residents this winter to outline the district’s parameters, its operations and property tax impacts. Those dates are still being finalized but will be made publicly available by early December.

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