Rural counties push changes for Texas EMS grant program - KCBD

French, who represents the Texas EMS Alliance, also testified before the Committee on Public Health in June. That repeat trip to Austin says something about how urgent this feels to the people running EMS in small counties across the South Plains.

The money at stake is real. The Texas Comptroller's Office approved $25 million last year for 58 rural counties under House Bill 3000 to launch the Rural Ambulance Service Grant Program. As of September 1, that number jumped to $63.9 million spread across 150 counties, covering nearly every county in this part of the state. Hale, Lubbock and Borden counties are among the few on the South Plains left out.

For folks in small towns outside Lubbock, ambulance funding is not an abstract budget line. It decides whether a rural EMS crew can keep the lights on, staff a truck, and reach someone having a heart attack forty minutes from the nearest hospital. Counties pushing hardest for changes say the bigger numbers still have not fixed the actual problem, and if lawmakers change how the grant works, it could reshape which counties get help and how fast.