Registered voters currently served by Riverside EMS will have an opportunity to decide a critical levy issue in the May 6 Primary Election.
Riverside EMS, the volunteer emergency squad that serves the residents of Miami and Pleasant townships which includes the villages of DeGraff and Quincy, will cease operations Dec. 31, 2025. This action will leave residents in those areas with no dedicated EMS coverage.
Trustees from Miami and Pleasant townships have placed an EMS levy on the May 6 ballot to provide a funding source to allow the townships to contract EMS services for their constituents via other area EMS agencies.
About 40 people attended an informational meeting hosted by the trustees about the levy Tuesday evening, April 15, at Riverside High School.
Among the elected officials in attendance were Miami Township trustees Marvin McCully, Ron Pope and Ed Stevenson, Pleasant Township trustees Chuck Strayer and Steve Sanders, Logan County Auditor Jack Reser, Logan County Sheriff Randy Dodds and Steve Reid, Indian Lake EMS board president and Russells Point village council member.
Also in attendance were Logan Brown with Indian Lake EMS, Riverside EMS members Clint Buchenroth and Wes Brown, and Ryan Furlong with the sheriff’s office.
The 4-mill levy is expected to generate about $328,000, and will cost homeowners approximately $140 per $100,000 of assessed home value annually, trustees said. Homeowners may also visit https://realestate.logancountyohio.gov to see how the levy will affect their property taxes, Reser said.
Thus far, only Indian Lake EMS has submitted a proposal to the trustees to provide services, beginning Jan. 1, 2026, via a five-year contract, to residents who will be left without emergency service coverage when Riverside EMS ceases operations.
Robinaugh EMS of Bellefontaine has also expressed interest in providing services to affected residents but has yet to submit a proposal, trustees noted.
Riverside EMS, now down to just six volunteer members, “is running on fumes,” squad members present at the meeting said.
The squad, funded by the townships, receives only about $20,000 annually, about half of which is needed for insurance costs alone.
Trustees said previous efforts to merge Riverside EMS with other area EMS providers fell flat and the cost to fund a dedicated EMS agency for the area would cost taxpayers more than double the amount of contracting for services with Indian Lake EMS.
Wes Brown and Buchenroth said they feel having Indian Lake EMS provide services is a positive and necessary move for the community.
The Indian Lake EMS proposal is aimed at providing long-term, stable EMS coverage on a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week basis.
The contract would include a full-time paramedic or advanced EMT that would be stationed in the current Riverside EMS district. Tentatively, trustees hope the individual could be stationed in the Riverside EMS building, 105 S. Boggs St., DeGraff. However, the decision on where the new personnel member will be stationed has not yet been finalized.
The paramedic would be allowed to leave station, travel to the emergency scene and administer medical care. They would not, however, be able to transport patients from an emergency scene until another qualified driver or emergency service personnel member arrived on scene, under Ohio law.
Asked how much squad runs would cost using IL EMS, Steve Reid said a “soft billing” method would be utilized. With soft billing IL EMS would only charge what a resident’s insurance provider would cover. Residents would not receive out-of-pocket bills for squad runs or other services under the contract, he said.
Last year, Riverside EMS had 244 calls for service, compared to 209 and 208 in 2023 and 2022, respectively.
Reid noted IL EMS currently already handles solo about 50 percent of the squad runs in the Riverside EMS territory and is involved in or provides mutual aid to about 80 percent of the total service calls.
Some attendees raised concerns about long response times in the past and questioned why the volunteer squad model that has served the community well for many years cannot continue to be utilized.
All six of the current Riverside EMS volunteers are already working part-time for IL EMS, and other Indian Lake personnel have familiarity with the area. First responders also have a GPS phone application, which helps avoid getting lost and delaying response times.
Ryan Furlong said people just aren’t volunteering for emergency service work like they did in the past. He noted there were about 40 volunteers for such work in the county in the mid-90s as compared to about 13 today.
Once Riverside EMS is defunct, what happens when your “grandson flips a four-wheeler or grandma has a heart attack?” Logan Brown rhetorically asked the crowd.
“To think in 2025 the ambulance might not show up (when called) is insane,” he said.