CANYON COUNTY, Idaho — As Canyon County grows, so has the number of emergency medical calls.
Canyon County Paramedics are sounding the alarm, asking voters to pass a $5.8 million levy override on the November ballot to fund more resources and paramedics.
"Over the last five years, our call volume has gone up by about 20%," Canyon County Paramedics Chief Michael Stowell said. "We can't keep up."
If passed, the funding would rebuild their station in South Nampa, build a new station in South Caldwell, and add one ambulance and seven paramedics.
The South Nampa station, which is the second busiest in the county, is set to be torn down in the next two years.
"We do not own the station, and it's being torn down in the near future due to private development," Stowell said. "So we need to rebuild it."
The ambulance district is trying again after their previous levy failed in May.
The new levy is asking for about $2 million less than the May proposal, opting to get rid of an extra nighttime unit proposed in the previous levy, in an effort to make it more palatable to voters.
"For this November election we have pared it down a little bit, because we've changed our deployment model," Stowell said. "We're focusing more on the daytime hours, which is where the call volume is higher."
The last time the Canyon County Ambulance District passed a levy was in 2001.
"The need is not going away, it's actually increasing with the population," Stowell said. "Call volumes for everybody, whether it's EMS, fire, law enforcement, we're all feeling the pains of growth."
If passed, the levy override would increase property taxes by $14.96 per $100,00 of taxable assessed property value. The levy requires a supermajority to pass in November.
More information about the Canyon County Paramedics levy can be found here.