Hawkeye Reporter

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) recently signed a bill to support rural emergency services in Iowa. According to the Cascade-Pioneer, the bill allows county governments to deem EMS as essential services, a classification that will bring emergency medical services more funding in the future.

The additional funding can come in either a property tax or a local option income tax. Whichever avenue a local government chooses must be approved by 6% of the public on the ballot.

"Last week I signed a bill that invests in our EMS services, especially those in rural Iowa!" Reynolds said in a post to her Twitter account on June 19. "This pandemic shined an even brighter light on the work our emergency responders do. I’m proud to have signed a bill that helps show our support for them."

EMS officals have in the past complained about a lack of resources. 

"My fear is that we're not going to have a crew to respond to somebody's emergency and somebody's going to die from it," Joseph Hupp, director of Panora EMS, told KCCI. "We need more funding for mental health, we need more facilities. Right now, you're pulling 911 ambulances and their crews to do nonemergency mental health transports."

Mark McCulloch, former president of the Iowa EMS Association, echoed these concerns.

"In the rural areas of our state, funding is a huge issue," McCulloch said to KCCI. "We always say that seconds matter. When someone's having a heart attack, minute is muscle, and the longer they wait, the worse their outcome."

State legislators praised the bill for addressing the above issues. 

"This has been a long time getting here,” state Representative Lee Hein (R-Monticello) said, as reporter by Cascade-Pioneer. “We’re very proud of the job you guys do and hopefully this will provide some revenue to support training and equipment.”

Iowa media has long reported that lack of state intervention in the underfunding of rural EMS could have fatal consequences.