A brief budget discussion held recently by McMinnville officials could be the beginning of the end for McMinnville Fire Department’s first-responder program.The proposed budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year was distributed Tuesday night. It came with a transmittal letter from city administrator David Rutherford.“I made recommendations,” he said, of the letter. “I will go ahead and tell you probably the one that will cause the most controversy this year is a recommendation to eliminate the first-responder program.”In the letter, Rutherford sites several problems with the program:• First-responders work under the oversight of the county’s Emergency Management Service and only provide basic first aid while waiting for the county’s EMS to arrive on the scene.• In 2010, first-responders went out on 1,334 calls.