Future of volunteer EMS service in doubt, study says

Ozaukee County’s tradition of relying on mostly volunteer and paid-on-call fire and emergency services may be coming to a close based on options laid out last week by a Milwaukee-based research firm that has been studying the county’s nine fire departments since last summer.

The study by the Wisconsin Policy Forum — which examined call volumes, budgets, staffing and other factors — comes as a shortage of paramedics and other emergency medical staff has reached crisis proportions, especially in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and the cost of vehicles and equipment has skyrocketed.

The study, which was released last week, makes no recommendations but offers six options, each of which include increasing the number of paid, full-time staff and greater “intergovernmental cooperation” up to the full consolidation of existing departments.

The paid-on-call “approach has generally served these communities well over time,” the study authors say. “Yet, it is also evident that it is now showing severe signs of distress. These signs began to emerge several years ago but have now intensified in light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.”

That was especially true in the last two months of 2020 and early 2021 when some fire department rosters were depleted by holiday vacations and the coronavirus, making them unable to respond to calls, the study says.

The study cost $23,500 and was paid for by the county’s nine fire departments and the municipalities they serve.

The study suggests six options, grouped into three tiers:

• The first tier calls for departments to work collaboratively but retain their independence. That would include departments pooling their resources to hire full-time paramedics and strategically locating them around the county at an annual per capita cost of $16.02 or creating full-time firefighter shifts at some stations to handle anticipated higher call volumes at a cost of $29.98. 

• The second tier calls for consolidating some departments, as Grafton and Saukville are currently doing, at an estimated cost of $33.99 or creating two regional, north and south, departments costing $54.73 per capita.

• The third, and most expensive, tier would create a single countywide department, with one option calling for higher administration levels, costing $88.86 per capita annually. A scenario with less administration is estimated to cost $42.24.

“While the nine fire departments maintain strong working relationships that help plug some service gaps and take justifiable pride in their part-time and volunteer models, those models now require some form of fortification to respond to current conditions,” a press release accompanying the study said.

“The challenges are now sufficiently acute to justify immediate investment in service and staffing enhancements, which would be most effective and efficient if made as part of broad-based, systemic collaboration,” the report said.

The combination of increased call volumes and staffing shortages have created a crisis situation for area fire departments.

According to the study, Ozaukee fire departments collectively saw a 23.5% increase in service calls from 2015 to 2019 caused by an aging, but growing, population, and economic growth and development.

Saukville saw a 33.9% rise in calls; Port Washington 31%; Grafton 30.1%; Mequon 21.2%; Thiensville 14.8%; and Cedarburg 13.1%. 

Total response times vary from department to department based on geography and  the number of full-time on-site staff.

Among county departments, response times ranged from seven minutes for emergency medical service, or EMS, calls and nine minutes for fire calls for the Grafton Fire Department, which has five full-time staff members, to 14.4 minutes for EMS calls and 17.8 minutes for fire calls for the Waubeka Fire Department, which relies exclusively on volunteers.

About 80% of all calls countywide are EMS calls, the study says.

“They could be called EMS departments instead of fire departments,” Policy Forum President Rob Henken said in an online meeting last week with fire chiefs and municipal leaders at which he presented the study. 

Current net per capita spending levels are comparable between Saukville, Fredonia, Waubeka and Belgium, ranging from about $35 to about $42. Surprisingly, the cost per capita in Mequon and Grafton, even though they have more full-time staff than other departments, is comparable to the northern communities at $52 and $53, respectively.

Departments in Port Washington and Cedarburg have the lowest cost at $8.07 and $8.86 while Thiensville’s is $84.49.

The additional investment by municipalities to implement the study’s options would range from $1.45 million to supplement services with full-time paramedics to $7.86 million to create one countywide fire service. 

Henken said there may be federal grants available to help fund consolidation efforts but he’s not aware of any from the state. 

Henken will meet with each municipality individually to collect feedback on the plan.

Henken met with Saukville and Port Washington officials Tuesday night.

After hearing the presentation, Port Washington Ald. Jonathan Pleitner said, “None of this is surprising information to us. Volunteering is no longer what it was. We cannot depend on this.”

Ald. Dan Benning said, “This is a good start. We need to do something. It’s not just the stations but the staffing of stations.”

Future presentations are planned at the Fredonia Government Center at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 18, at the Vililage of Grafton at 6 p.m. Monday, April 5, and at the Village of Belgium at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 14.

The meetings are open to the public.

Grafton Fire Chief Bill Rice last week told the village’s Public Safety Committee that the study “shows the desperate nature of some of the departments.”

Belgium Fire Chief Dan Birenbaum said the study is a good start toward working to solve the problems faced by fire departments.

“It was a good study that they did. Now people know what we’re facing. It’s a struggle,” he said. “The report shows the problem that we’re facing. Something has to be done in the near future. It’s a whole county problem.”

Henken said there is no timeline for taking action on the study.

“It is up to each of the communities to determine what the next steps will be,” he said during last week’s remote meeting.

Port Washington Administrator Tony Brown agreed.

“This whole report is a conversation starter,” and Port, he said, will begin having conversations when the council meets at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 20, when the new mayor takes office. “We’ll have a longer conversation about what to do moving forward.”

Current Mayor Marty Becker said the study doesn’t negate the need for a new fire station.

But Brown cautioned that the city shouldn’t move ahead with a new fire station too fast, saying it could detrimentally impact any move to consolidation or multi-jurisdictional agreements.

Brown also noted the city is also expected to do a staffing study for the fire department, and the department is working to hire two full-time firefighter-paramedics.

Cedarburg and Mequon are also in the process of hiring more people, he said. 

“It’s not that the communities didn’t recognize the issues,” Brown said.

He said it may take a year to determine which of the options is to be pursued.

“I don’t think you should run into an option without fully vetting it,” he said. 

That’s especially true, he said, since each municipality has to decide what they want to do, and decisions made in one affect others.

Port Washington Fire Chief Mark Mitchell said he doesn’t expect any decision to be made soon, especially taking into account the potential expense.

“I don’t see anything happening anytime soon,” he said. “I think everyone knew this wasn’t going to be a cheap endeavor.”