Board of Directors Minutes
Maxwell House Hotel
Nashville, TN
December 6, 2016
President Reed called the meeting to order at 5:07 pm
Board Member attendance:
| 1 | Andrew Reed – President | present | 8 | Ted Cox – South Central Region | present |
| 2 | Joyce Noles – Vice-President | present | 9 | Tim Booher – Upper Cumberland | absent |
| 3 | Keith Douglas – Secretary | present | 10 | Shannon Seaton – West Grand Div | present |
| 4 | Rick Valentine – Treasurer | absent | 11 | Ricky Slack – Middle Grand Div | absent |
| 5 | Andrew Hart – West Region | present | 12 | Tommy Crowder – East Grand Div | present |
| 6 | Wallace Elliott – Upper East Region | absent | 13 | Stan Clark – Southeastern Region | absent |
| 7 | Brad Phillips – Region II | absent | 14 | Lis Henley – Middle Region | present |
Others Present: Brad Gerfin (Washington County/Johnson City EMS), Jay Austin (Sumner County EMS), Danny Sheckles (TEMSEA)
- Motion by Joyce Noles – 2nd by Andrew Hart to accept the November 2016 TASA Board Minutes as written, motion Passed.
Financial Report: no report (Valentine unable to provide report due to Sevier County fires)
State EMS: No representatives
Committee Reports:
Reimbursement: Reminder that dates are set for next year – Sept. 6 & 7, 2017 with the Medical Director Conference on Sept. 9, 2017. Tommy has spoke with Director Tidwell and she advises that this date will work for the medical directors.
Mid-Winter: Joyce Noles reports that she should have agenda ready next week.
Legislative: Joyce offered that herself, Keith and Andrew Reed had a conference call with our lobbyist to discuss next year’s contract. The lobbyist had initially offered an increase from $30k to $50k. The lobbyist identified that TASA had been contracted at $30k for the last 10 years with no increase. After much discussion with the lobbyist about expectations and performance, it was decided that we would bring this information back to the TASA Board for a decision in December.
- Motion by Andrew Hart – 2nd by Tommy Crowder to renew the lobbyist contract for 2017 at $35k, motion failed (2 yes / 5 no).
- Motion by Andrew Hart – 2nd by Joyce Noles to renew the lobbyist contract for 2017 at $35k with the opportunity to negotiate up to $38k, motion passed (6 yes / 1 no).
Other business:
- Tommy Crowder discussed the opportunity to work with the Tequila Cowboy again for the 2018 EMS World Expo in Nashville. The Tequila Cowboy has expressed a huge interest in TASA returning. It was discussed to try and secure sponsorship for at least one big name artist. It is anticipated that the cost for the venue and the artist would be in the range of $30k.
- Other discussion regarding offering a make-up pre-conference for Instructor Coordinators at the Mid-Winter Conference. Andrew Reed had discussed this briefly with Donna Tidwell in which Donna had concerns that this would negatively affect the TEMSEA Conference and logistics would be an issue. Andrew assured her that our intentions were not to affect the TEMSEA Conference but rather supplement the IC in-service process by giving an opportunity to those IC’s who experienced a hardship and could not attend the TEMSEA Conference. TEMSEA representative Danny Sheckles was asked for input in which he did not indicate that this would be a negative for TEMSEA.
New business:
- Lis Henley discussed possible legislation coming up that would address the current problem of drones being allowed to fly up to one mile of identified air space. Currently this is allowed by the FAA.
- Tommy Crowder advised that letters are being sent out by United Health Care limiting reimbursement for ambulance transports to 36 per year.
Adjourned at 6:14 pm