What a relief: Paramedic unit fully staffed at last

Fredonia Fire Chief Brian Weyker made an announcement on Monday that puts him at ease and should give some peace of mind to residents of four communities.

“As of last night, we are fully staffed. We have three full-time paramedics and three part-time paramedics,” Weyker said.

“That is a load off of my plate right now to have that.”

Fully staffing the advanced life support program, a joint effort by the towns and villages of Fredonia and Belgium to have 24/7 paramedic coverage, has been a goal. But many area communities are hiring paramedics from a limited pool of candidates.

Weyker said he had two accepted offers over the last 48 hours.

“I’m glad to have that. We’ll get those people onboarded here in the next couple of weeks,” he said. “That’s a great thing right now.”

Paramedics are based at the Fredonia Fire Department, which remodeled its facility to create sleeping quarters.

The 2026 budget for the program, funded by the four municipalities using a formula based on average population, call volume and equalized value increase, is $500,000, which keeps it fully staffed.

The annual program budget may increase by as much as 6% per year without approval from the municipalities, according to an agreement by a joint committee composed of two members of each municipality’s boards. The committee chairman rotates to a different municipality every two years. Belgium Town Chairman Tom Winker is the chairman for the first two years.

Getting the four departments to cooperate and form an agreement was a challenge.

“When we put this together, it was kind of like herding chickens. It was very difficult,” Winker said.

But leaders of the communities and the Fredonia, Belgium and Waubeka fire departments collaborated.

“Everybody put their ego aside and we did the best for everybody, for all four communities,” Winker said.

The impetus for the increased service initiative came in 2021 when the Wisconsin Policy Forum did a study of the county’s nine fire departments amid a critical shortage of volunteers and paid-on-call responders. As a result, the Grafton and Saukville fire departments combined, as did the Thiensville and Mequon fire departments. Port Washington and Cedarburg chose to remain independent.

The County Board used American Rescue Plan Act money to kickstart the program. Winker, a former County Board supervisor, said he had to fight to make sure the county’s northern communities got their share. That funding ran out at the end of 2025, when municipalities were to fund their own programs.

The villages of Belgium and Fredonia approved referendums to pay for the program. Residents in the towns of Belgium and Fredonia gave their blessings for the tax increases through elector meetings.