The Mayes Emergency Services Transportation Authority held its February meeting Tuesday.

Trent Peper is the new board chairman of MESTA, elected last month.

MESTA Director Rick Langkamp gave his report. Collections for the month of January were $220,617.93. This includes a large amount from Medicare. The budgeted amount per month is $141,666.67. MESTA is $80,000 over budget. MESTA is working to get unpaid claims paid through a bill collection agency and has applied for a $4 million grant to develop a new system of caring for patients that MESTA must transport more than once a year. Over 90 percent of those patients are on Medicare or Medicaid. The grant would pay for the medics, training and other related costs for the program. The intention of the grant is to develop a program to work with the patient to decrease the number of ambulance trips. The federal government is shutting down payments to hospitals in which the patient is readmitted for the same ailment within a set number of days.

The new 12.5 megahertz (MHZ) radios are installed in the ambulances, which federal law will require by March. Langkamp is concerned by the plans in the Legislature to change the tax-exempt status of governmental trust authorities. Langkamp says that this change would likely force MESTA to pay up to $20,000 in sales tax a year on its purchase.

MESTA met with the Pryor Police Department on a request for proposal for a new 911 system for Mayes County.

The board agreed to purchase four new doors and rollers from Pryor Overhead Door for the ambulance garage at station one for $3,871.60. Langkamp said he will have the doors repaired two at a time as he does not want all four doors down during installation.

The topic of first responder issues came up during the meeting. Chairman Peper said that during an emergency in the county, nine times out of 10 it is the local fire department that arrives before the ambulance. The local fire department is closer to the scene of the emergency than MESTA in most cases. Board member Leon Blankenship said on Jan. 15 there was an emergency near MidAmerica Industrial Park that the Pryor Fire Department responded to before MESTA arrived and MESTA is closer to the scene of the emergency than the local fire department. Langkamp said that  particular call came to Pryor before it was sent to MESTA.

Peper said that MESTA has met with Pryor officials concerning first responder billing issues.