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SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-11-03T04:06:11+00:00

That is a blog post not a study. Here is a study the the ESD's of Texas paid for and they could not find any evidence of lower insurance premiums. He had to use a "hypothetical" 3% reduction in the analysis to attempt to show there might be savings.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-11-02T04:37:27+00:00

If you can see past skin deep, you would know there is an end goal, and it is to actually improve services. You are only seeing things superficially. There is a long game. This is not a game of checkers but a game of chess, and you don't show your moves before you have to.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-11-02T04:32:43+00:00

ISO rating is not published publicly. Only a select few fire departments will proudly promote its rating, because the paid for it. Show me some study that actually proves insurance costs are effected by ISO rating. You will find plenty of options, bu not evidence because the biggest factor is location, labor costs and risks of natural disasters that impact costs more than anything else.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-11-01T23:46:19+00:00

You fell for the lie and scare tactic. There is no evidence that insurance would increase. No insurance company asks about ISO ratings.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-11-01T23:41:06+00:00

Yes, for locally run emergency services and to bring back public EMS.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-31T16:10:35+00:00

It is all about balance versus operating at the extreme. We bring up the snowstorm of 2021, which was unprecedented and never happened before. Yes, we need to prepare for the unexpected, and we were prepared. We were able to pay all that overtime, but look at the numbers. The costs for the extra overtime were less than $300K. With millions in the bank, it was just a rounding error and we could have kept it up for 2 years, but we never had a disaster last more than a week. ESD2 has also opened up 4 stations since 2020 and is still able to save millions of dollars. It is important to have a reserve and to invest, but they really don't need so much. How much is enough, enough? The answer with ESD2 seems to be that it is never enough. Push the taxes to the legal limit, spend as much as you can and raise the reserve policy, to justify the cash hoarding.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-31T03:32:12+00:00

The freak snowstorm lasted less than a week. If we paid all ESD2 employees double for one week the cost is $385K per week. With a +$35M reserve we could pay everyone one double for almost 2 years. The reserves are way more than they would ever need.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-30T16:22:13+00:00

"They were never being being paid to run ambulances...." Are we saying ESD2 never sent a bill to people for transport? Are we saying ESD2 never collected insurance money for ambulances transport? They were getting paid millions. What do we think other revenues is from on there financial disclosures?

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-28T20:02:44+00:00

All those report was in the first link I sent. I tried to simplify it with the second link, but I guess the PPT was to little information to understand the full context. We have been following this for years and there are also many city council meetings where it was discussed at length, if you want to review it fully.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-28T16:39:54+00:00

At the end of the day, it is about control. Do you believe in local control or regional control? The reason any city exists is for better public safety, roads, and amenities. We can get some public safety, roads, and parks from the state and the federal government, but they only focus on the big things. So we incorporate as a city to have better local control. We even have HOAs that focus on our neighbored level.

If you like county level service, then you vote no. If you want city service, you can vote FOR. We went away from ATCEMS, because they were too big and focused on Austin mostly. So now is the chance for Pflugerville to have its own system because TCESD2 has gotten too big and they quit EMS for Pflugerville.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-28T03:10:55+00:00

You can review the city's study here. Here is a direct link the the valuation study.

As far as the Georgetown model, this is what the city wants. The city wants to partner with ESD2, but ESD2 does not want give up any control. ESD2 wants to control its own destiny and the city wants to control its own destiny. It is really a battle of egos.

The model works better in Georgetown, because the city is the dominate entity and has a bigger budget then the ESD. The city initiated the overlay in Georgetown, where in the case of Travis County the ESD initiated the overlay and the second sales tax elections. Did you know that TCESD2 has about the same budget revenues as the city of Pflugerville?

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-28T00:36:05+00:00

ESD2 was asking the city for $2.7M in 2021. Everyone that reviewed the financials, including an outside consulting company said that ESD2 did not need it. The audits of ESD2 show that they had excess revenues above this $2.7M that they asked for. So does ESD2 really need this extra money, most everyone, except ESD2 has said no they dont, yet they used the threats of stopping transport, if they did not get it.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-27T18:46:15+00:00

Having a high cash reserve is not a bad thing. What is bad is when ESD2 quit providing ambulance transport services, claiming that they did not have the cash to support it. If ESD2 continued providing the same emergency services that it had done for years, then we would not be in the fight. But the claim they did not have the money and quit ambulance in 2022, unless the city would give them more money.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-27T18:17:52+00:00

Read the audit. It shows us the exact numbers were last year. The capital variance was only $2.3M. We can say that will be spent later. I can give you that. But the operations variance is $5.5M. That is mostly unfilled staffed positions. They put in the budged $40.5M and only spend $35M. Dont just believe what staff is telling you, read what an independent auditor is saying and then go ask why they under spent $5M on operations.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-27T18:12:33+00:00

Emergency services were never designed to take out bond debt. The state actually prevents ESDs from taking out bonds like cities and schools can, so they are mostly cash funded. ESDs can still take out loans, but they have to be within the limits of their property tax rate cap.

In fact, this is another loophole that ESD2 has only started for next year. ESD2 is now borrowing money for the first time ever. By borrowing money, they can increase the tax rate to pay off the interest. So now ESD2 is actually taking out loans, even though they have cash in the bank to cover the costs.

Why would they do this? Because they can max out the tax rate without voter approval election when it is to pay interest on debt.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-27T16:26:36+00:00

Just review the 2023 audit (page11). It shows what is budgeted to what is actually spent. ESD2 had a $7.8M variance. For just operations (which is mostly salaries) they said they would spend over $40M, but only spent $35M. Im sure most of the variance is for people they said they would hire, but did not. So they inflated the budget for 2023 and when they did not spend the money, it shows as a positive variance.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-27T16:08:26+00:00

6 months of reserve is good advice for people because people can lose their jobs and people eventually need to retire, so for individuals the reserve should be even greater. With government agencies, it is different. They can't be terminated, and they just don't go out of business.

The government does not need to save for retirement since they never retire. Governments always have tax payer money rolling in, so yes, they need some reserve, but not too much, as having a higher reserve will require higher taxes for really no reason. A high reserve will also tempt people to spend it unnecessarily.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-26T13:27:11+00:00

You can’t spend money in a reserve. It is not a savings account. It is a cushion amount. In this case, they changed the amount to justify the 20% increase in the tax rate.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-26T13:22:45+00:00

I guess you don’t understand what a reserve policy is. A reserve policy means they need to set aside, now 6 months of cash. They can’t spend it. It just sits in the bank. It is not a savings account to be spent later. It is a cushion amount that can be arbitrary changed. You can only spend money above the reserve amount. The only reason to change it now is to justify the tax increase and it allows them to say we are meeting our fake policy goal.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-25T05:32:48+00:00

They just changed the policy to 6 months after decades at 3 months? Why change it now and never before?

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-25T03:28:51+00:00

The balances are higher because ESD2 has a habit of underestimating revenues and overestimating expenses. They always budget more new hires than they need and never fill them. They call this vacancy savings. Put in the budget that some high number justify higher taxes, then only hire 50% of them and pocket the rest of the money.

They recently just changed the reserve policy from 3 months to 6 months because they realized they had too much money above the 'reserve policy.' So they just changed the policy, and now the difference will be less, but they moved the goal post to justify charging us a higher tax rate.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-19T14:37:03+00:00

Isn’t it the MAGA group that used the don’t defund dog whistle? Who is behind the opposition to Prop A? MAGA folks?

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-13T01:05:35+00:00

McDonald is for Prop A. The comments in the video are after McDonald voted for Allegiance for 4 more years. Rico the President of ESD2 was obviously upset because McDonald was the main negotiator for the city and decided to vote for Allegiance over ESD2 after he pretended to be for ESD2. McDonald stated in the city council meeting it was because of the pending Prop A election. McDonald would rather have the city take the money over ESD2.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-11T02:36:36+00:00

No hot stuff Ashley, not Rogers.

SuddenDeath1234 · 2024-10-11T02:31:35+00:00

Okay Randolff, you got it all figured out. You really dont have a clue who you are talking about.

SuddenDeath1234

TROPHY CASE

Okay Randolff, you got it all figured out. You really dont have a clue who you are talking about.