MONROE — Lafayette County officials issued a lengthy and detailed response Wednesday to allegations they were trying to charge communities that already have emergency ambulance services a fee to help fund the county’s new EMS service.
The press release from Lafayette County EMS was largely in response to accusations that the county was double charging for service when it created the new entity, starting on July 1, 2021. Green County EMS previously provided service to rural Lafayette County as needed.
At issue is when Blanchardville President Nick Crooks said in published reports that the village and others like it were taxed for the Lafayette County EMS service — even though some of those municipalities have their own EMS. The tax is ostensibly to help the county with a $200,00 budgetary shortfall that came from creation of the new service.
But the statement from LEMS said that any accusation of double-billing was a mistake.
“No municipality had a tax levied against that local unit of government except for the municipalities currently participating in the LCEMS,” said the statement, which was signed jointly by EMS director Shawn Phillips, Bob Boyle, Lafayette County EMS Committee chair; and Britnie Linden, deputy EMS director. “Lafayette County Government and LCEMS feel that all EMS providers in our county do a great job at what they do and want to remind them that they are valued and appreciated. The majority of first responders in our county are volunteers and give up a great deal of their time to help our neighbors, friends, and visitors.”
Other municipalities with their own EMS/fire departments include Wiota, Benton, Wayne, Cuba City, South Wayne and Hazel Green.
The new county EMS is overseen by Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County. It also was created to address ongoing issues between EMS volunteers and the Rural Medical Ambulance Service Board.
Blanchardville, according to one official, reportedly filed a resolution with the Wisconsin DOR in protest what it perceived as a tax Lafayette County has imposed on all county municipalities to provide county EMS service to replace the services previously contracted to Green County EMS. What’s more, some of the roughly half dozen villages have hinted they may eventually sue over the issue.
“Recently when Villages and Townships received their tax invoices from the County there was a new never before seen line item labeled County EMS,” said Blanchardville Village Trustee Dennis Olson.
But that simply is not true, because there is no tax, according to the release and Scott Pedley, District 15 supervisor and former Lafayette County Sheriff.
“The fact is, no municipality in Lafayette County received an ‘invoice’ for county EMS services as a result of the appropriation of $230,786 in the 2023 Lafayette County budget,” said Pedley, adding that Olson and others must have mistaken the apportionment document they received for a bill. “Each municipality did receive an apportionment form delineating the amount taxpayers would be contributing as a part of the county portion of their tax bills.”
What’s more Pedley said, a public hearing on the budget was held, the amount for county EMS was announced at the hearing and at the county board meeting during 2023 budget approval — during which there were no objections.
Lafayette County EMS recently received a grant and used the money to purchase a new response vehicle and ambulance. They emphasized that they intend to work in concert with all of the counties other EMS services, as they are mostly volunteer organizations and those types of services nationwide are struggling to recruit, train and keep workers.
“…It is a function of the LCEMS to encourage the continued existence of volunteer ambulance services for as long as they are sustainable with the understanding that LCEMS will be available to any community as a possible substitute ambulance service if staffing a local volunteer ambulance service should become unsustainable,” the LCEMS statement added.