MONROE — Count former Shullsburg Mayor Emmert Reilly among those who supported the creation a few years ago of a Lafayette County EMS service.
When he was ill a few years ago, he remembers having to search for an available ambulance to take him to Madison for surgery from among the patchwork of ambulance services in the area. A county ambulance would make it much easier for those living in areas without a dedicated municipal EMS service, he said.
“Lafayette County can get in there and be on-call 24 hours a day,” said Reilly. “It’s definitely needed because you just never know when people in the county will need the help.”
But while Reilly is supportive of the relatively new service, there are other officials who resent having to pay a new tax levied on them by the county for the creation and maintenance of Lafayette County EMS. They say they are essentially paying for EMS twice.
Village of Blanchardville President Nick Crooks has said in published reports that the village and others like it were taxed $7,000 for the Lafayette County EMS service — even though some of those municipalities have their own EMS. The tax is to help the county with a $200,00 budgetary shortfall that came from creation of the new service, according to officials.
Other municipalities with their own EMS/fire departments include Wiota, Benton, Cuba City, Wayne, 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 (RMASB).
Blanchardville, according to one official, has filed a resolution with the Wisconsin Department Of Revenue (DOR) in protest to a tax the county has imposed on all county municipalities to provide county EMS service to replace the services previously contracted to Lafayette by Green County EMS. What’s more, some of the roughly half dozen villages may eventually sue the county 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 Village Trustee Dennis Olson, adding that he wasn’t the only one caught by surprise by the tax.
He said creation of the service by the county board in 2021 was a costly endeavor and now the municipalities seem to be paying the price.
“The county definitely had some bills to pay because they hired two people to run it, bought two ambulances right away and have a third on the way as well as a rapid response vehicle,” said Olson. “They also apparently hired three full-time EMTs. Never mind that they barely have enough staff to fill one ambulance, let alone three and a rapid response vehicle.”
County Board Chairman Jack Sauer has defended the tax, which about 28 municipalities in total are paying.
“I just think it was good business for us to do,” Sauer said, in a published report.
Repeated attempts to reach Sauer for comment on the EMS issue were unsuccessful. Shawn Phillips, director of the new Lafayette Service, also did not respond to inquiries seeking comment.