Town of Elk Mound receives $52,500 planning grant for county-wide EMS and fire services
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Town of Elk Mound has been awarded a $52,500 innovation planning grant from the state of Wisconsin to study county-wide emergency medical and fire services.
At a meeting of the Dunn County unit of the Wisconsin Towns Association, representatives for the towns in Dunn County decided that the Town of Elk Mound should take the lead on an innovation planning grant for county-wide EMS and fire services, said Tony Christopherson, chair of the Town of Elk Mound, at the February 24 meeting of the Dunn County Judiciary and Law Committee.
The day of the committee meeting, February 24, the Town of Elk Mound was notified that the town had received the grant, Christopherson said.
There are 360 emergency medical services in Wisconsin that go out on one million calls annually, or 2,700 per day, and 800 fire departments that go out on 18,000 calls, or 49 per day, said Garrett Zastoupil, regional community and leadership development educator with UW-Extension.
State law requires ambulance services to provide on-call coverage 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year, and the question is — are the ambulance services reliable and sustainable? Zastoupil said.
If the service cannot provide coverage 24/7/365, then the service is failing or is considered failed, he said.
It is not that the individual service has failed, but rather, that the system itself has failed, Zastoupil said
Across Wisconsin, 41 percent of ambulance services have reported lacking availability for 24/7/365 service, and 64 percent of services in northwest Wisconsin have reported lacking availability, he said.
Increased costs
The cost of EMS has “sky rocketed” in recent years and has increased at two to three times the increase in the consumer price index, Zastoupil said.
The average cost of a new fire truck is $850,000, and the cost of a new ambulance averages $250,000, while a new power cot for the ambulance costs $22,000, he said.
The Colfax fire district is expecting delivery of a new fire truck at the end of this year or early next year at a cost of $875,000.
The Village of Colfax just took possession of a new ambulance at a cost of a little over $300,000.
The Elk Mound fire department’s fire engine is 23 years old, and the Elk Mound fire board just spent $100,000 on repairs, Christopherson said.
The Elk Mound fire district covers the Town of Elk Mound, the Town of Spring Brook and the Village of Elk Mound.
The Colfax fire district covers the Village of Colfax and the Towns of Colfax, Grant and Otter Creek.
Levy limits
The state put a property tax levy limit into effect in 2005 that only allows townships to increase the tax levy by referendum or if it is approved at a special town meeting. The revenue limit also is increased by net new construction, Christopherson said.
In 2006, the Colfax ambulance service cost the Town of Elk Mound $10,089 or 4.9 percent of the town’s property tax levy, Christopherson said.
In 2024, the Town of Elk Mound paid $78,439 for the ambulance service or 28 percent of the town’s property tax levy, he said, noting that in a less than 20-year period, the increase was $68,350.
The cost for fire service in the Town of Elk Mound has not increased as much.
In 2006, the Town of Elk Mound paid $34,308, or 16.6 percent of the property tax levy for fire service, while in 2024, the Town of Elk Mound paid $40,492 for fire service, or 14.5 percent of the property tax levy, Christopherson said.
In other words, the Town of Elk Mound pays 42 percent of the property tax levy toward making sure fire and ambulance services are available for town residents if those services are needed.
General municipal aid has increased because of the maintenance of effort reporting requirements for fire and ambulance services, but the Town of Elk Mound is still $12,650 “in the hole” even with the increase, Christopherson said, noting that the increase for emergency services was another $12,000 for 2025.
The municipalities that subscribe to the Colfax ambulance service pay a per capita fee because the Colfax Rescue Squad is not an ambulance district, but instead, is owned by the Village of Colfax.
The municipalities in the Colfax and Elk Mound fire districts pay their share of the annual budget according to the percentage of equalized property value in the municipality as compared to the total equalized value in the fire district.
Wages
The Colfax EMS budget for 2025 is $784,234, with $458,234 for labor, Christopherson said, adding that he may have transposed the numbers so that the labor cost is actually $548,234.
A full-time EMT in 2022 was being paid $21.6 per hour, while part-time EMTs were being paid $12.62 per hour, he said.
Casual part-time EMTs were being paid $7.50 per hour in 2022, and in 2023, they were being paid $10 per hour, Christopherson said.
In 2015, EMTs were paid $3.50 per hour for being on-call, and in 2016, they were paid $7.25 per hour. The average pay in 2025 was $26.18 per hour, he said.
The increases for fire and ambulance services come out of road repairs for the Town of Elk Mound, Christopherson said.
The majority of the ambulance budget is wages, “and we are not overpaying,” he said.
The road Christopherson lives on was blacktopped in 1966 and was repaved in 1989. The culverts are a year older than Christopherson, and it will be another 20 years before that road will be back in the budget, and that’s assuming there is no inflation for repaving a road and that the Town of Elk Mound can put the same amount toward roads, Christopherson said.
The “wiggle room” is that towns, by state law, can assess the cost for fire protection outside of the levy limit, although towns cannot assess outside of the revenue limit for ambulance service, Zastoupil said.
On the other hand, by state law, counties can exceed the revenue limit for ambulance services, he said.
Options
The options are that Dunn County does nothing, Zastoupil said.
The county also can levy for the ambulance service and then owns and operates the ambulance service, he said, noting that the option seems to be more workable for very rural counties.
The county also can levy and contract with a single provider. Eight counties in Wisconsin are operating under that model,, Zastoupil said.
The county also could levy and contract with multiple providers, both private providers and pre-existing municipal providers, he said.
It is a conversation that is happening to figure out how to strengthen fire and ambulance services, Zastoupil said.
One idea is to have county-wide paramedics who are there not for emergencies, but rather, if an elderly person has fallen or someone reports having a headache, he said.
The county-wide paramedic would offer services like public health nursing and would be available for both emergencies and preventative care, Zastoupil said.
If there was a county-wide paramedic, and if Colfax, for example, could not staff a second-out ambulance when the first ambulance was already out on a call, the county-wide paramedic could respond, and if there was an emergency medical responder (EMR), then the patient could be transported with a second ambulance, Zastoupil said.
The same company contracting with the Town of Elk Mound did a study in Bayfield County, Christopherson said.
If Boyceville or Colfax, for example, has a certain patient who needs certain drugs that the EMTs cannot administer, then those services ask for an intercept with Menomonie with a paramedic, he said.
In Bayfield County, they have a couple of county-wide paramedics who consult with patients by appointments if they are not needed for an ambulance run, Christopherson said.
If Dunn County had a couple of paramedics, they could meet the ambulances from Colfax or Boyceville when an intercept is needed, he said.
The consultant will look at what services are available in Dunn County for fire and ambulance and will assess the strengths and weaknesses, Christopherson said.
Challenges
One recent challenge was the Shooters Show Girls fire in the Town of Elk Mound, Christopherson said.
The call came in at 5 a.m. and required mutual aid from Menomonie and other fire departments, he said.
Menomonie was able to bring 1,000 gallons of water, but 130,000 gallons of water was needed to fight the fire, Christopherson said.
Christopherson, as chair of the Town of Elk Mound, received a call and ended up pumping, over several hours, 100,000 from an irrigation well. Additional water was needed from the Village of Elk Mound. The amount of water needed to fight the fire was more than village’s reservoir held, he said.
All together, 10 tenders were needed to haul water for the Shooters fire, Christopherson said.
The Town of Elk Mound also was asked to supply salt-sand for the fire scene because it was below zero, and water to fight the fire was freezing on the pavement around the building, making it difficult for personnel and equipment because of slippery conditions, he said.
Christopherson recalled being in high school in Elk Mound a number of years ago when a parent showed up at school, brandishing a gun. Terry Stamm, who was the Elk Mound police chief at the time, was outside trying to deal with the parent while Christopherson’s classmate was taken out of class.
Stamm served as the Chief of Police in Elk Mound for 10 years and then served as the director of public works for another three decades.
About 25 years ago, an employee said to Christopherson, “We need to talk. I almost committed suicide,” Christopherson said.
Melissa Gilgenbach, director of the Dunn County Communications Center, has talked about dispatchers making calls for EMS, waiting for four minutes, with no response, and then going on to make the next call, and waiting for four minutes with no response, and then going on to make the next call, he said.
Trying to find someone to respond to the call for an emergency is additional stress for the 9-1-1 communicators, Christopherson said, adding that the additional stress may lead them to leave that job for something that is not as stressful.
“The studies are pointing to an unsustainable future [for fire and EMS], and I will not stand by and do nothing,” he said.
An innovation planning grant kick-off Zoom meeting with the stakeholders in Dunn County was planned for March 11.
