The Town of Fountain Hills has negotiated a new contract with Rural/Metro Corp., an agreement that could extend the company’s ongoing relationship with the community past the half century mark.

The proposal is a five-year agreement with two two-year extensions, potentially running for a nine-year span to 2026. The company has had a presence in Fountain Hills since the early 1970s.

Town Manager Grady Miller told the Council that the existing Rural/Metro agreement was due to expire at the end of June 2018. Miller said for financial purposes he wanted to get an agreement finalized as quickly as possible so, over a three month period, Miller and Town Attorney Andrew McGuire negotiated with Rural/Metro Fire Chief for Central Arizona Ted Beam.

The new agreement picks up where the old one left off using identical terms. The contract includes an annual multiplier of three percent for increases. It begins with the 2017/2018 fiscal year with an amount of $3,508,053. Beam told The Times he believes the agreement has had the same terms dating back through the years of Fire District operation.

In the beginning

McCulloch, the original developer for Fountain Hills, hired Lou Weitzman’s Scottsdale-based Rural/Metro soon after the development process began. Weitzman founded the firefighting company in 1948 after watching a neighbor’s house burn down. The company also provided security services and that was initially the primary role of Rural/Metro in Fountain Hills.

Beam said he began working for the company part-time in 1977 and one of his first full-time assignments was in Fountain Hills in 1978. He explained that the security model worked with Rural/Metro employees on patrol and if anything suspicious or a problem turned up it was called in to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. He did not recall any significant incidents.

Beam recalls the highlight of the Fountain Hills duty at that time was the daily flag raising at the visitor center at Shea and Saguaro Boulevards. It was raised in the morning and lowered at sunset.

New challenges

In the early 1980s Weitzman created an employee ownership structure for the company and about 10 years later Rural/Metro began trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange. At a point when the price of shares was low the company was purchased by a New York investment firm, which began a series of financial struggles with Rural/Metro ownership changing hands a couple of times.

Beam explains that ambulance transport and emergency medical services became a greater part of the company model in the 90s and the first decade of the century.

“The healthcare industry has a hard time getting reimbursed for its services,” Beam said.

This led to significant financial woes. The situation alarmed members of the Fire District board in Fountain Hills which led to the board decision in 2000 to sever ties with Rural/Metro and go it alone. The town had been incorporated about 10 years at that point and the Town Council made the decision to dissolve the Fire District, take over fire service and retain Rural/Metro.

In an effort to shed debt the company declared bankruptcy in the summer of 2014. Soon after emerging from bankruptcy Rural/Metro was purchased by AMR, a Colorado emergency transport company.

AMR was in turn purchased by Denver based Envision Healthcare. Currently there is new talk of AMR, and Rural/Metro being sold by Envision.

“So many changes really don’t matter to the people and companies we serve,” Beam said.

Recent operations

Rural/Metro Corp. is really about 100 smaller operations nationwide, according to Beam. In fact, he said his Central Arizona responsibility includes an Oregon operation.

“We still need to provide the services and nothing changes on the street,” Beam said.

Technically Rural/Metro fire services and ambulance operations are separate; however, over the past year and a half the company has been working to integrate the two to complement service.

In Fountain Hills ambulances are manned by firefighters to make the personnel available on fire scenes as well as able to work with mutual aid partners.

Over the first five years of the new contract, Beam said he believes Fountain Hills may need to look at expansion to assure adequate coverage in the more sparse areas of the north and west parts of town.

The town has a five-year capital plan that includes a third fire station, most likely near Desert Canyon and Sunridge Drive.

Maintaining new technologies in communications is vital to emergency services and Rural/Metro plans to help Fountain Hills keep up with that technology.

The number of service providers of communications links can be a challenge, according to Beam.

“We are working to reduce the number of players so we are less likely to experience a radio failure,” he said.

Beam said the town is happy working with Chief Dave Ott and they hope to maintain the relationship.

“The town is just awesome to work with,” Beam said. “The administration is very good.”