Over the past 12 years, the Wisconsin Policy Forum has published nearly 20 studies for municipal and county governments in all parts of Wisconsin on fire and emergency medical services (EMS) challenges and possible solutions. As we noted in our October 2021 study, In Need of Resuscitation?, those challenges are typically linked to “increasing service calls from an aging population and staff recruitment and retention difficulties.” They are also compounded by the impacts of lagging state aid and state-imposed limits on local property taxes.
Waunakee Area Emergency Medical Services (WAEMS) and Middleton EMS have not been immune from such challenges. In the case of these agencies, however, the foremost problem comes from sharp rises in new development and population, which have caused call volumes to surge.
For Middleton EMS, that sharp rise in calls has prompted agency leaders to consider adding a third ambulance crew at a new station in the northeast corner of the city of Middleton. WAEMS also is beginning to consider a new station in the vicinity of the town of Westport in the southeast portion of its service area – not far from the area in which Middleton EMS is considering its additional station. For WAEMS, the most important improvement for now might be the ability to house its two ambulances in different geographic locations to improve response times throughout the district’s large expanse, although current call volume trends suggest that officials there might soon need to consider a third ambulance, as well. Middleton EMS officials also have noted a desire for a second station location irrespective of whether a third ambulance is added.
Another distinction for the two communities has been their response to this problem thus far. While financial constraints have precluded many Wisconsin EMS agencies from taking the necessary step of converting from a part-time, paid-on-call staffing model to one employing at least some full-time responders, both WAEMS and Middleton EMS have already found ways to finance and implement a conversion to full-time staffing. Whether these moves have now tapped their financial capacity to pursue additional stations and ambulances has become perhaps the most pressing question.
In light of that question, and the fact that both agencies are considering the need for new stations in relatively close proximity to one another, officials from the two governments have discussed whether a collaborative approach should be considered to address their common EMS needs. Such an approach could involve sharing additional personnel, vehicles, and a new station or even merging the two departments into a single consolidated EMS agency. The goal would be to avoid or reduce future costs and meet common service challenges in a more effective and cost-efficient manner than if each agency acted independently.
In this report, we address the desire of both agencies to explore a collaborative approach by analyzing EMS service sharing or consolidation options for their combined service areas. Our programmatic and fiscal analysis has been aided by officials from the two agencies, who helped identify the options and provided both data and insights. The analysis is designed not to point local officials to specific conclusions, but rather to provide sufficient insights and modeling to allow them to conduct informed deliberation and reach consensus on a course of action that will ensure high-quality and efficient EMS service levels for citizens of the region for the foreseeable future. Continue reading…