Voters to determine east Custer ambulance

Voters on the eastern side of Custer County will head to the polls June 2 to decide whether or not to pay extra taxes to ensure ambulance coverage continues on that side of the county.
For the past several months the Custer County Commission has been working with Pennington County, the Rapid City Fire Department and representatives of the eastern side of the county to bring about the vote, if which approved will bring about the creation of the East Custer Ambulance District.
The issue was raised again at the April 22 meeting of the Custer County Commission, with the commission passing a resolution that formally initiates the formation process for said district. The district would encompass 601 square miles, including some parts of Pennington County just past the Custer County line to the north to where the Buffalo Gap-Riverside Ambulance District begins to the south, the Custer County/Oglala Lakota County line to the east and essentially to the middle of Custer State Park to the west. It would not include property within the two taxing districts that already exist on the eastern side of the county, Keystone Ambulance District and Buffalo Gap/Riverside Ambulance District.
The district would encompass 385,112 acres of land that contains about 1,500 parcels of land that would pay into the district. It would also include the towns of Hermosa and Fairburn, the town boards for which have already passed resolutions supporting the creation of the district.
Aaron Davis, legal counsel for the commission, reminded those in attendance the passing of the resolution does not create the district, but rather, sets forward the process to bring the issue to the voters within the proposed district.
Leo Van Sambeek, who has worked on the creation of the district through Hermosa Connects, told the commission creation of the district is a necessity if eastern county residents want to make sure there is money to compensate whatever ambulance service responds to calls on that side of the county.
The budget for the district, how much would be paid by landowners, etc., is not known, because the district has to first be approved before a board of directors before the district is put together to determine a budget. Van Sambeek said he personally would like to see the district funded through a fixed amount against parcels of land that have the potential to call an ambulance rather than a mill levy.
“The support by the community seems to be overwhelming,” Van Sambeek said of the district formation. “A good gauge of that is people I thought would be really against this are really for it. I fully anticipate this will have overwhelming approval.”
Potential board members could not begin the petition process to be on the board until after the June 2 election, and there will need to be another election for the board, run by the county.
A discussion was held as to how large the board of directors would be, with Van Sambeek saying he would like to see a five-person board, but it was unclear if the amount of directors would be regulated by population, state statute, etc. That was to be investigated further.
Van Sambeek said he would like to see five board members because there seems to be five general areas on the eastern side of the county.
“I’d like an odd number and three doesn’t seem like enough,” he said.
All the positions on the board would be at large positions, and it would also be investigated as to whether there had to be an election if the exact amount of petitions were received for the numbers needed on the board.
The creation of an ambulance district—or expansion of the Custer Ambulance District to cover the area—have both been on the table since earlier this year when the county received a letter from the Rapid City Fire Department (RCFD) saying that due to rising call volume in Rapid City and Hermosa it no longer wanted to provide coverage for the Hermosa area—at least not at the price it was doing it for at the time.
Through a 2007 agreement RCFD has provided ambulance service to Hermosa and eastern Custer County for $2,000 per year, and at the time of the agreement it was a sustainable situation due to the low call volume and the benefit to Rapid City from Hermosa’s sales tax dollars. However, the call volume has increased over the years, RCFD’s costs went up, and $2,000 per year ceased to be sustainable.
The fee was increased in 2025 to $60,000 per year for 2025 and 2026, and a long-term solution was sought. In 2024, RCFD ambulances responded to 140 calls in eastern Custer County, at an estimated cost of $1,000 per incident.
It has been indicated the district would likely contract with another ambulance service—such as RCFD—at least initially, as it is not believed the funding would be available immediately to form an ambulance service with its own ambulance, garage and employees.