Joint paramedic service plan, budgets approved

The Village Board on Monday approved a slew of items relating to the joint paramedic service agreement four municipalities have developed over the past few years.

The villages and towns of Belgium and Fredonia agreed to combine their emergency services in response to increasing response times and a shrinking pool of paid on-call volunteers. The Village of Fredonia is running the program by contracting with the other three municipalities.

Ozaukee County provided northern fire and EMS departments with a $640,000 grant from its American Rescue Plan Act money to help pay paramedics for the program. How to spend that money has to be determined by the end of 2024 and the money has to be spent by the end of 2026.

By then, the municipalities had to have figured out how to pay for their joint paramedic service on their own.

The board approved a revised intermunicipal agreement for joint paramedic services between the municipalities that has the annual budget increasing by no more than 6%. The budget will be presented to each municipality no later than Oct. 1 of each year.

The original agreement had a 5% increase and a budget presentation date of Aug. 1.

The municipalities must approve or deny the budget by Nov. 1. If any deny the increase, the budget will increase by 1.06%.

Each municipality’s contributions to the program are determined by call volume, population and equalized value. For population, determined every 10 years by the U.S. Census Bureau, municipalities’ contributions are figured by the proportion of their population to the total of all four.

The Village of Belgium has 29% of the population, Village of Fredonia has 27%, Town of Fredonia has 27% and Town of Belgium has 17%.

The board also approved, pending a review by its attorney Brad Hoeft, an agreement to repay costs in excess of the grant money for 2023, 2024 and 2025. Paying for 24/7 paramedic-level service costs more than the county grant provides.

The Village of Fredonia will send a bill to each municipality for their share of the extra costs not to exceed $150,000, split by the same formula in the agreement. The Village of Belgium’s share is estimated to be $83,420.

If any municipality denies funding the extra charges, the Village of Fredonia won’t fully staff the paramedic-level service.

But the villages of Belgium and Fredonia plan to go to referendum in November to ask voters to fund the joint paramedic services above the villages’ levy limits. Village Treasurer Vickie Boehnlein said referendum money would help pay for some costs not covered by the grant.

The two towns plan to hold elector meetings to ask for a tax increase to pay for the service.

The board approved the 2024 joint paramedic service budget, which Boehnlein said was late, and the 2025 budget, which she said was early. Belgium’s share in 2024 is $85,000 and in 2025 is $131,200, both covered by grant money.

It also approved a 10-year capital improvement plan from 2025 to 2034. The intermunicipal agreement requires the Village of Fredonia to submit a five and 10-year capital improvement plan to the other municipalities. In 2025, $100,000 is set aside to remodel the Fredonia firehouse to add sleeping quarters for the paramedics.

In 2034, replacement of an automatic external defibrillator and a paramedic chase vehicle are scheduled. If approved, Belgium would pay $17,000 each year toward those items, which are already included in the budget, Boehnlein said.

All votes were 6-0. Trustee Dan Wolff was absent.