Nov 19, 2002 By Christine Haines 6 min read

WASHINGTON TWP. – The Washington Township-Fayette City Community Ambulance Service (CAS) is open today as a completely volunteer service. CAS voluntarily suspended service late last Friday night over fears that its liability insurance had lapsed, but that situation was clarified Monday morning. The insurance was in place and had been in place throughout the weekend, the ambulance service officials learned.

However, the insurance issue was just one minor issue the 25-year-old ambulance service faces. The non-profit group’s assets have been seized by the Internal Revenue Service because of unpaid federal withholding and Social Security taxes for 2001.

Since the ambulance service can’t access its payroll and other financial accounts, it can no longer pay its employees.

“All of our members have stayed on and they should be commended. We don’t want the community to have to wait 20 minutes for an ambulance out of Fayette. Our response time now is about four minutes,” said Kimberly Rehe, the vice president of CAS.

CAS has provided 24-hour paid service to 10 communities in Fayette and Washington counties, as well as North Belle Vernon in Westmoreland County. The service has operated with about 40 paid employees and three volunteers until now. There are now 43 volunteers, CAS president Dave Martini said.

“In January of this year, through an internal audit, we found some discrepancies that we aren’t able to disclose at this time. We contacted the IRS to see where we stand,” Martini said.

The ambulance service discovered that its federal taxes had not been paid for 2001. The current unpaid balance is $141,972.64, including penalties and interest. The IRS can assess interest of five percent a month for the first five months payments are late, equaling 25 percent of the tax owed. Martini said the ambulance service is currently working with two attorneys and a certified public accountant to resolve the situation.

Martini said the service’s 2002 taxes, including all state and federal taxes, are paid up to date. Rehe said CAS has approached banks to borrow the money to pay off the IRS, but the loan applications have been rejected.

“No one wants to invest, because EMS is a risky business,” Rehe said. “We paid off everything we possibly could. We used all of our subscription money from last year to get caught up.”

The reluctance of banks to loan money to CAS could also be related to the IRS lien placed on the organization’s financial accounts.

“A federal tax lien establishes the IRS’s interest in property and its legal right to collect,” said William Cressman of the IRS. “It gives notice to creditors that the IRS comes first.”

Cressman said he could not comment on the specific case, but in general, the IRS would prefer to see a business stay in business if it owes taxes, so that debt can be paid off.

“The IRS, when it takes an enforcement action of any sort, doesn’t put a business or organization out of business,” Cressman said.

However, Cressman said that the act of seizing assets may hinder an entity from doing business either temporarily or permanently. Cressman said the seizure of tangible property, such as a building or equipment, is rarely done by the IRS any more.

CAS is still in control of its building and its ambulances, though routine operations will get progressively more difficult without any liquid assets. Rehe said neighboring ambulance services have offered to put gasoline in the CAS ambulances and have even offered to staff the Washington Township and Roscoe stations if necessary.

This year’s subscriptions are being extended until February 2003. Martini and Rehe said they didn’t feel comfortable taking subscription money at this time. They are also hoping the problems with the IRS will be cleared up by February, so the ambulance service can accept funds without them being seized by the IRS.

Rehe noted that there does not appear to have been any misappropriation of the tax money, but that the funds just weren’t there to send to the IRS because of the tight financial situation the ambulance service has been in because of insurance reimbursement regulations.

“We used to have 4,000 calls a year. We’re down to 1,700 calls. The insurance companies are dictating that you have to call your primary care physician before you call an ambulance,” Rehe said.

CAS told Fayette 9-1-1 that it couldn’t take calls as of 11:18 p.m. Friday. The Washington County 9-1-1 Operations Manager John Lloyd said his office was never officially notified by CAS, though he did receive a call Monday morning from another service that CAS wasn’t available.

“We’re going to get help to the people who need it. We’re going to get the closest, most expeditious help that’s available,” Lloyd said.

Guy Napolillo, the Fayette County 9-1-1 coordinator, said no one fell through the cracks because of the late notice of the problem, but earlier notification would have made things run more smoothly for the 9-1-1 center.

“It’s very disappointing to me that we didn’t know about this until Friday night. There’s a mapping system that we use and measures we would have put into place,” Napolillo said.

Napolillo said the Fayette City Volunteer Fire Department went out for all calls involving life-threatening situations in its area over the weekend, in addition to nearby ambulance services being dispatched. Napolillo said calls in Fayette City, Jefferson Township, Washington Township, and Belle Vernon Borough were handled by the Brownsville Ambulance Service Inc., the Perryopolis Area Ambulance Service, Rostraver EMS, and Mon Valley EMS.

Lloyd said calls in Elco, Roscoe, Stockdale, Allenport, Dunlevy and Long Branch in Washington County were handled by Brownsville Ambulance Service Inc. and Monessen Ambulance on an emergency basis. CAS president Dave Martini said everything should be back to normal today, though it’s not known how many of the communities will be keeping CAS as the primary responder. Fayette City borough council was addressing the issue Monday night, with some consideration with naming Brownsville Ambulance Service as the primary responder.

“Each municipality has the right to say who their ambulance service will be. Every town has a primary service, then a back up is designated. Calls automatically go to the secondary service when the primary isn’t available,” said Phil Stoner, executive director of the Emergency Medical Service Institute in Pittsburgh, which oversees ambulance services in the region.