Representative Figley, speaking for House members, told the conference committee the House amendment to the distressed ambulance-area bill would emphasize local stakeholder planning and set deadlines for notifying the Health Department.

"The whole process, reading this bill and then, had people talk to me about it, and they said, vaguely, can you rewrite this? And so I spent quite a while trying to come up with what we really wanna do," Representative Figley said, describing revisions that direct affected communities to hold stakeholder meetings and produce a plan to the Health Department within 60 days.

The amendment discussed by the committee would also add a provision allowing a representative of an adjacent ambulance service to attend stakeholder meetings (noted as added at "line 25 on page 7" in the draft shown to the committee) and would adjust the Health Department grant program to assist hiring (noted by speakers as appearing on page 8 of the draft). Representative Figley said the grant program is administered by the Health Department and that "they take a little bit of that money and help in the hiring." She also noted the governor recently signed a related grant program and said she did not want to revise that enacted program.

Senator Clemens, who said he had been the lone Senate "no" vote on an earlier version, told the committee he supported the House amendment because it created more local dialogue. "I support the house amendment because I feel it's giving a better ground dialogue between the department and the local ambulances," Senator Clemens said.

Several committee members raised operational concerns about the bill's back end — what happens if a service cannot meet its obligations during a required notice period. Senator Roars said the bill should include some coordination or stronger follow-up when a district is unable to respond. "If you cannot meet, like, you don't have the staff...what do you do for those 30 days when your ambulance exists on paper, but you're not actually able to respond?" Senator Roars asked, urging the group to consider adding enforcement or stronger assistance on the back end of the process.

Other committee discussion focused on rural staffing shortages and community responses. Members and witnesses described past local stakeholder processes that produced new funding or tax districts, cited recruitment of high-school students into career-track programs, and recounted examples where regional economic change affected local EMS capacity. Representative Figley described a local turnaround in which a district moved from three EMTs to a larger roster after community planning and local revenue changes.

No formal motion or roll-call vote on the bill or the discussed amendments is recorded in the transcript. Committee members agreed to "mull over" the changes and reschedule the conference committee to continue the discussion.

Next steps: staff were asked to circulate draft language; the committee planned to reconvene to consider edits and possible additional language addressing coordination when a service is unable to respond. The transcript ends with the chair saying the committee will reschedule the meeting.