If you pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1 for a health emergency, you expect to see an ambulance at your doorstep within minutes. And if it truly is a health emergency, does it matter what the name on the side of ambulance is?

It may. Paramedic/ambulance service officials tell us that it is a very expensive business venture — one that should not be taken on to make money or to support a fire department.

So our ears perked up when it was reported to our Rumors Line that the City of Fairmont was contemplating going into the ambulance business.

The financial woes of the City of Fairmont are not news. For the past several years, the city has been keeping its chin above water. A water crisis in the winter of 2007 has done nothing to help the city’s financial situation, as since then, the water utility’s problems have been draining money from other accounts. Even now, the city is in the midst of a lawsuit to try to recoup some of the out-of-pocket money from its faulty plant in the hopes of making other accounts whole.

The city already has raised its water rates (there’s an interim rate about half of what the city asked for as the state Public Service Commission waits to make a final rule on the increase).

But as much of a drain as the faulty water plant has been, it is a very expensive prospect to staff a professional fire department — the only in the county — to serve the needs of the residents of Fairmont.

Out of a $10.9 million annual budget, about 70 percent goes to employee compensation each year, including salary, retirement and benefits. And public safety is certainly Fairmont’s largest pool of employees. And the fire fees the city asks its residents and businesses to pay does not come anywhere close to the annual expense of a professional fire department.

So who could fault the city with trying to come up with some money-generating ideas to support the services it already offers those who live within Fairmont.

And that may be where the rumor started that the City of Fairmont planned to create an ambulance service to generate funds for the fire department.

However, it never went beyond the discussion phase, City Manager Jim Snider told our reporters.

“There has been talk — we looked at the cost savings within the year,” Snider said. “Nothing was actually given ... there was no report, just brainstorming about the cost-saving measures. That’s as far as it ever got.”

Snider said it was a departmental-type discussion that never extended past the discussion stage.

“They are not still talking about it,” he said last week. “It was all just strategizing, evaluating services and what it would do.”

While there is already an ambulance service in place in the city, the Marion County Rescue Squad (MCRS), Snider said there was discussion about whether it would be cost-effective to consolidate the city’s services with that of the rescue squad’s.

“There were no contacts made, no cost analysis for it,” Snider said.

This is a rumor that Lloyd White said he has heard, too. The administrator for the MCRS said that the organization was concerned about the impact that an additional ambulance service would have on the revenue generated by the rescue squad. While the squad is a not-for-profit organization, there is excess revenue generated in order to support equipment upgrades and to maintain the staffing level it has.

“You have to have a profit margin,” White said, explaining that just within the past year, the MCRS invested more than $170,000 on state-of-the-industry cardiac monitors. They’ve just ordered three new ambulances and have new ventilators.

“We probably have the best equipment of any ambulance service in the state,” White said.

With 63 employees, 10 ambulances and three stations (one on West Side, one in Pleasant Valley and one in Mannington), the MCRS has a $2.6 million budget. But having to “compete” with a Fairmont ambulance service might have a serious impact on the strength of the rescue squad, White said.

White didn’t mention any specific numbers, but we know that the City of Fairmont accounts for about one third of the county’s 56,000 population base. Rough math would mean that an ambulance service in the city might cut down the number of MCRS transports by as much as a third. There are already ambulance services offered by Worthington, Fairview and Grant Town.

“If they would start an ambulance service in City of Fairmont, we’d have to re-evaluate the staff patterns,” White said, adding that there are now seven shifts of EMTs and paramedics making calls throughout the county on a daily basis.”Clearly the citizens of Marion County would be the ones to suffer.

“We are a very strong system — once that system gets fragmented, you lose that strength,” White said. “It takes volume of calls to survive.”

According to city officials, the conversation about this change is over. So it may be fair to say this rumor is debunked.

E-mail Marion County: Fact or Fiction at rumors @timeswv.com or call our dedicated Rumors voice mail line at 304-367-2509.