Funding Pflugerville EMS
- Fact 1: The city of Pflugerville is one of the largest city in Texas without control of its own fire and emergency services.
- Fact 2: In May of 2014, ESD2 held an election to start collecting more sales taxes to support advanced life support services.
- Fact 3: ESD 2 took over providing ambulances from ATCEMS in 2017 and became the sole provider of ambulances that was funded by taxes collected from ESD 2 residents.
- Fact 4: The city of Pflugerville has been getting its ambulance services from ESD2, until January 1st, 2022. ESD2 also serves areas outside the city limits of Pflugerville.
- Fact 5 : On January 1, 2022, ESD2 stopped providing advanced life support services and ambulance transport services to the city of Pflugerville, yet ESD2 continues to collect property taxes and sales taxes from city residents.
- Fact 6: Since ESD2 stopped ambulance services, the city of Pflugerville has had to seek alternative providers for our ambulance services since January 1, 2022.
Recommendations: Since ESD2 has decided to stop ambulance services to the city of Pflugerville, we should stop paying sales tax to ESD2 for services that are not being delivered and transfer the sales tax to the City, who has now become responsible for providing ambulance service after ESD 2 quit.
Temporary plan in place: Ambulance services for the city of Pflugerville have been provided by Allegiance , without any additional cost to the residents of Pflugerville, but there are costs associated with providing emergency services.
Long term plan to fully fund Pflugerville EMS: To continue to allow the city of Pflugerville to provide EMS, we need to transfer sales taxes from ESD2 to the city of Pflugerville. This will require an election by everyone inside of ESD2.
Sales Tax Transfer: We can elect to stop paying a half cent sales tax to ESD2, within the city limits, and elect to give that half-cent to the city of Pflugerville, instead of ESD2.
Property Tax Transfer: The sales tax transfer will be a good start to fully funding Pflugerville EMS. Eventually, the city council can also vote to set up its own fire department. The ESD2 property tax will go away and be transferred to the city of Pflugerville, along with existing ESD2 assets, so no duplication of infrastructure would be created. No net increase in taxes.
Call to Action:
Support the City of Pflugerville’s Emergency Services. Sign the petition to put on the ballot to remove the half cent sales tax from ESD2 and transfer that to the city of Pflugerville to help fully fund emergency services for the city of Pflugerville.
May 2023 election : Vote Yes to ESD Prop A to reduce the sales tax by a half cent in the City and unincorporated areas of ESD2. Vote Yes to City Prop A to give the city of Pflugerville the half cent sales tax to fund emergency services.
Reference : Timeline of MES funding requests to the city in letter to Travis County Commissioner Travillion – June 2022