Williamson County committee weighs options as Spring Hill EMS interlocal nears June 30 expiration

The Williamson County Law Enforcement Public Safety Committee spent the bulk of its May 20 meeting considering options for the county’s role in Spring Hill emergency medical services as an interlocal agreement with the city approaches a June 30 expiration.

Connor Scott, who presented the briefing to the committee, said the county has covered EMS for both the Williamson and Murray County sides of Spring Hill since 2020 and provided the committee with a memo to aid decision-making. "We do need to determine some sort of course of action that will go through the process for the month of June," Scott said, adding the memo was intended as a resource rather than an item requiring action that night.

Scott said the county used a system-based method to estimate costs and call volume, and that "the Murray County side is 9 to 10% of the overall system call volume," producing a gross service cost estimate in the range of $1.2 million to $1.4 million and roughly $400,000 in patient revenue generated on that side. Using those figures, Scott said the county’s net cost to provide service to the Murray County side would be on the order of $1,000,000, though he repeatedly described the numbers as approximate.

Committee members and staff discussed a set of practical options if the county were to alter or stop providing the service. Scott said negotiating direct reimbursement from Murray County or asking Spring Hill to increase its contribution were possibilities, and he proposed a short extension — for example, six months — to buy time for negotiations. "One option could be ... a 6 month extension and say, well, if we were going to ask them for $1,000,000 for a year, maybe they could afford half — $500,000 for half a year," Scott said.

Members pressed staff about operational impacts and contractual obligations. Staff noted the county is contractually obligated to provide the service until June 30 and cautioned that quickly changing arrangements could create mutual-aid complications. "If we walked away from the Murray County side, then our closest unit would be on Campbell Station Parkway," Scott warned, describing scenarios in which mutual aid and transfers would be required and observing that Murray County currently lacks extra capacity to absorb the service immediately.

Michael Wallace, who also addressed the committee from the podium, urged caution. "It's very complex ... it really feels wrong to just cut this off," he said, advocating a "slow roll" approach while the parties negotiate.

Staff and members also discussed state 911 fee allocations and a Spring Hill payment the transcript alternately recorded as approximately $545,000–$556,000; staff said the state issues one aggregate allocation to the county and further research is needed to determine how much of that allocation corresponds to the Murray County side. Scott said staff will follow up with additional research and that a decision timeline will have to account for municipal budget cycles and negotiations with Murray County and Spring Hill.

The committee did not take formal action on the Spring Hill EMS item at the meeting. Scott said he had a follow-up meeting scheduled with Spring Hill city staff and that the commission would need to decide whether to continue the interlocal arrangement or pursue alternatives before the June 30 contract expiration.