Amid EMS crisis, village agrees to study consolidation

Last week, the Saukville Village Board approved a memorandum of understanding agreeing to study consolidating fire departments with Port Washington, Grafton and Cedarburg.

This action comes as Ozaukee County municipalities apply for paramedic grants from the county. The county is pushing for municipalities to consider consolidation after a Wisconsin Policy Forum study analyzing the county’s emergency response recommended such action.

When establishing requirements for its grant, the county decided to give consolidating municipalities an extra $100,000 annually as an incentive. This is on top of the potential $200,000 departments could get annually for three years operating on their own. According to Saukville Fire Chief Bill Rice, this would allow each participating municipality to hire a firefighter paramedic per $100,000. Rice also serves as Grafton’s fire chief.

If the county’s four central municipalities reach an agreement, they could get another $100,000 to improve their firehouses. According to Rice, Saukville’s firehouse is currently set up for a volunteer crew, which would change with the consolidation. The station would have to accommodate  24-hour staffing by providing sleeping quarters.

Volunteer retention has been a longstanding, but improving, issue for the Saukville Fire Department. While Saukville recently added six new emergency medical technicians, Rice said the department still struggles with retaining volunteers due to work, family and geographic restrictions.

Because of this, Rice said it has been difficult to maintian 24/7 coverage, but the village took action.

“The Village of Saukville committed to hiring two full-time firefighter paramedics in 2021,” Rice said. “That is difficult for a small community to do financially. So essentially, the village did everything they could; they spent every penny they could this year to get those two full-time firefighter paramedics. That leaves little money to meet other needs in the community.”

Trustee Trevor Seitz said the board recognized that emergency medical services was an issue before consolidation efforts began, and that they “wanted to get ahead of the game.” He said the village’s “volunteer fire department is phenomenal, they just don’t have the numbers.”

Rice said these staffing issues are due to the departments’s history. Saukville had a well-staffed volunteer department until former Chief Gilly Schultz retired in 2019.

“Schultz retired and they hired somebody new,” Rice said. “When he came in, more and more people started leaving. The new guy only lasted six months. By the time he left membership had dropped to a very low number. As a result, the department, on an almost daily basis, struggled to provide ambulance service and in some cases fire service. There was nobody left.”

From there, Rice said Saukville teamed up with Grafton to share a fire chief. He said while the department took steps to improve staffing, coverage gaps still occur.

“Saukville has recovered in the last year and the workforce is improving,” Rice said. “We’ve recovered and have much better coverage than a year ago. The village’s actions have helped, but we still have a long way to go. If we’re going to go through all this work, we should do it with neighbors.”

  Before getting involved in emergency response full-time, Rice spent 17 years volunteering for the Village of Bayside, but ultimately ended his tenure there with the  consolidation of Milwaukee’s North Shore  emergency services in 1995, creating the North Shore Fire Rescue.

Rice said the North Shore department is an example of what could happen in Ozaukee County.

“It’s considered a successful consolidation nationally,” Rice said. “It’s a big deal, and you’ll find even the Wisconsin Policy Forum had a report 20 years later saying how they saved money and improved service.”

The Wisconsin Policy Forum estimated that if each of the North Shore Fire Rescue’s seven municipalities operated separately it would have cost $12.7 million in 2014. The consolidation, saved more than $1 million with $11.6 million in expenses. Seitz believes the same financial relief could come with this consolidation too.

“It’ll cost more in manpower, but it’ll be less on the capital side,” Seitz said.

He said a fire truck can cost as much as $800,000.

Rice said by looking at North Shore’s consolidation efforts, officials know of three big issues they have to address: how it will look, be funded and ways to govern it.

Historically, fire departments are known for their territorial tendencies, especially with the pride centered around volunteer driven departments. This could make this consolidation difficult.

“It’s going to take a lot of collaboration from a lot of people in these communities to come up with the right plan,” Rice said. “I don’t have the right plan yet, but I’m working on it. I’m going to work with these other communities.”

The Saukville and Grafton fire departments already have a strong relationship through joint trainings and a shared fire chief, making consolidation efforts easier.

“We have a good attitude about each other,” Rice said. “We’re willing to work together. We’ll do something in the future for sure.”

Saukville officials speak highly of the partnership between Grafton and Saukville and the work Rice has done.

“It’s been a phenomenal partnership, and we hope the rest of the county sees how well the partnership is going and will work with other communities,” Seitz said.