UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Council Approves Contract Extension For Paramedics Plus

UPDATE:

The Sioux Falls City Council approved a contract extension for Paramedics Plus, the city's contracted ambulance service.

The city council approved the extension at Tuesday night's meeting.

Paramedics Plus will now serve as Sioux Falls' primary ambulance service until 2026.

ORIGINAL STORY:

The Sioux Falls City Council is set to vote on an extension for the city's contract with Paramedics Plus.

Paramedics Plus was granted a five year contract starting in 2015 to be the primary ambulance service in town and it's time to revisit that agreement.

Mayor TenHaken and his administration are hoping the city council members will vote to extend Paramedics Plus’s contract for another six years. They would continue being the city's ambulance service under contract, but we do know that all council members don't agree.

The city is at a point in the Paramedics Plus contract where it's time to consider an extension. Mayor TenHaken's administration is in full support.

"So the reason we're supportive of the extension is there's requirements that the contract in place on service level times and safety guidelines that they have to meet or exceed and Paramedics Plus has far exceeded all those and so they've been a very good partner for the city of Sioux Falls from that aspect," Sioux Falls Mayor, Paul TenHaken said.

But one council member doesn't support a new contract. He thinks the city should be utilized for ambulance services.

"I probably won't be supporting the contract more in a taking a look at just saying that we need to make sure this is on our agenda for the future," Sioux Falls City Councilor, Pat Starr said.

He thinks there are things within the contract that could have been better.

"Some of the improvements that we did make again were for the firefighters providing ALS services and I think it'll make it tolerable to get through until the city's ready to take over the ambulance transportation services," Starr said.

Mayor TenHaken thinks it makes more sense population wise to keep working with a contracted company.

"I’m not going to say that we're never going to get into the ambulance business, but where we're at right now with our population size and with our budget and so forth it makes a lot of sense for us to continue this extension with Paramedics Plus while we look at where we want ambulances to be in six years,” Mayor TenHaken said.

Mayor TenHaken says that this ambulance and first responder service won't cost the taxpayer a thing since this is a contracted service.

We also reached out to Paramedics Plus today, but they didn't want to make a comment until the vote was decided.