Alberta’s air ambulance service is looking for a long-term funding commitment from Foothills County.
During a presentation to council on Nov. 20, STARS senior municipal liaison Glenda Farnden told the County it was about $174,000 short of earning logo status. Municipalities that have contributed $500,000 over time to the air ambulance have had their logos placed on helicopters in the fleet.
A total of seven have made logo status so far, including Rocky View County, which reached the $500,000 recognition level in July. The remainder of the logo municipalities are from northern Alberta.
She said STARS understands the uncertainty in municipal funding with the provincial budget that came down earlier this month, but she hopes the County will consider increasing its current level of giving, which is $20,000 per year.
“I would like to ask you for consideration to join about 60 per cent of those municipalities that have changed taking STARS and their commitment out of community grants and actually recognizing us as a part of emergency protective services, which is who we work with every single day,” said Farnden. “So we are part of their annual budgets.”
Foothills County doesn’t intend to talk about its level of sponsorship for 2020 until it begins budget talks.
Coun. Robert Siewert said it seems like the municipality has been getting a good bang for its buck since it began funding STARS.
“So $326,000 we’ve contributed since 1992, that’s a lot of years,” said Siewert. “And earlier on the number was approximately $200,000 of service value we get per year. So it’s definitely money well spent, I’m thinking.”
The numbers are based on the average number of responses within the County, which could include traffic incidents on major highways but also emergency transfers from High River or Black Diamond hospitals or responses to accidents on farms and acreages or within Foothills hamlets.
As of Nov. 13, statistics showed about 2.5 missions per month in region, said Farnden. There were 238 missions in the municipality in the last five years.
“You have a very busy area, very busy hospitals as well,” said Farnden. “The core of the municipal ownership program is we all travel, we commute, whether it’s for work or recreation we go into neighbouring municipalities. People come through Foothills County.”
STARS is seeking more sustainable funding from its municipal partners in order to continue its level of service, which now runs throughout Alberta, in Saskatchewan and into northern British Columbia, she said.
The service receives 20 per cent of its funding from Alberta Health Services through a 10-year affiliation agreement, which will end in 2020.
“We are in very high-level discussion right now with Alberta Health Services with how we might move forward from there with our agreement,” said Farnden.
A reduction in funding from the government would mean STARS would be on the hook for even more fundraising. At this time, it raises 80 per cent of its own budget, which amounts to $20 million per year.
The annual calendar campaign, one of the most well-known fundraisers run by STARS, brings in between $800,000 to $1 million per year, she said.
“It just continues to hold its own,” said Farnden. “People still want to support, they want to read those patient stories, so it’s still kind of just hanging in there.”
STARS also runs an annual home lottery, which accounts for $11.5 million. Its site registration program, which has remote locations connected to the STARS Emergency Link Centre for improved emergency preparedness and response, brings in $1.5 million per year.
Municipal funding still makes up a significant portion of donations coming into STARS, said Farnden.
“We are currently reaching about 90 per cent of all rural municipalities in Alberta that are part of this program, giving on a per capita basis or a dollar value,” she said.
Of those, she said 70 per cent give $2 per capita annually.
The budget has grown exponentially over the years to match an expansion of services, said Farnden. In the beginning, STARS flew 50 missions per year in total, and in 2018 there nearly 3,000 flown.
“We have to have some sustainability pieces as we go forward,” she said.
It’s especially important as the old helicopter fleet, which will be 34 years old this week, gets phased out and replaced with new machines, she said. The original eight BK117 machines are outdated and parts are no longer being made for them, which makes them difficult to run.
STARS felt the effects of the transition in 2018.
“We had some challenges that year because we had several helicopters down waiting for parts as far as our back-up units, which meant we were really bare bones as far as making sure we were operational at all times,” said Farnden.
Last year, the air ambulance service began a new capital campaign to purchase nine new H145 helicopters. It would cost $117 million to serve western Canada. The Government of Saskatchewan pledged to pay for a new machine in Saskatoon and AHS paid for one Alberta unit.
In addition, a federal grant for $65 million covered five helicopters, leaving just two for STARS to fund itself at $13 million each.
Three have been delivered already, including one in Calgary in July and one in Saskatoon, with the third currently being used for training, said Farnden. The next three should be delivered in spring 2021, and the last three one year later.
“We are at the same time hoping we will have just completed this $26 to $30 million capital campaign in order to pay for those helicopters,” she said.
