Boyceville ambulance district approves using $106,000 Flex grant toward new ambulance
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
BOYCEVILLE — The Boyceville Community Ambulance District Board has approved using a $106,000 Flex grant from the state of Wisconsin toward the purchase of a new ambulance.
Wisconsin dedicated $32 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to emergency medical services and asked all ambulance services and first responder agencies to apply, said Wayne Dow, director of the Boyceville ambulance service, at a meeting of the ambulance district board on October 12.
The state received $63 million in requests and awarded a percentage of the requests to all who applied, he said, noting that first responder agencies received 100 percent of the amount requested and ambulance services received about 45 percent of the amount requested.
Boyceville’s grant is a little more than $106,000.
Dow said he was recommending that the grant be applied toward the purchase of a new ambulance.
Current bids for ambulances are coming at around $315,000, and the lead time until delivery is 18 months to 30 months, he said.
The lead time on a new ambulance will provide time for the ambulance district to finance the purchase, Dow said.
The Boyceville ambulance district, as of the night of the October meeting, had $122,000 in the checking account and $67,000 in savings.
The grant money “will start the ball rolling,” and then the other financing can follow, Dow said.
As of January 2024, the Boyceville ambulance district will make the last annual payment on Medic 10 of $28,628, and the annual payment on a new ambulance, financed at the current interest rate of 5.2 percent, would be $26,111, he said.
Payments on a new ambulance would match the current budget since the payment amounts would essentially be the same, Dow said.
Ambulance board members asked what would be done with Medic 11, which is the older ambulance that would be replaced.
Medic 11 would be sold at auction or sold outright. Someone recently mentioned that it could be converted and used as a food truck, Dow said.
Medic 11 is a 2006 model with a diesel engine, and estimates are that it would bring about $5,000, he said.
Medic 10 is a 2015 model, Dow said.
The Boyceville ambulance service must decide now how the grant money will be spent, and if it is not spent for that purpose, then the money must be returned, he said.
Other grants
The Boyceville ambulance service also has a little over $28,000 in other grant money from the state, and a new auto-load cot for the ambulance would cost about $30,000, Dow said.
The additional grant money could be used for an auto-load cot that could be purchased for the new ambulance, he said.
The cost of the power load cot would be included in the cost of a new ambulance.
The 2006 ambulance has 58,000 miles, the box is rusting, the hinges are rusting and there is no power load cot, Dow said.
Dow had talked to a vendor about refurbishing the 2006 ambulance, and the cost would be about $10,000 on a vehicle for which the ambulance service would receive about $5,000 for trade-in value.
One-third of the cost of a new ambulance would be covered by grant money, and a new ambulance would put the fleet of two ambulances at seven to eight years apart, he said.
Why two?
One ambulance district board member asked how many times the additional ambulance had gone out last year.
The back-up ambulance went out twice last year, Dow said.
Several ambulance board members questioned why Boyceville needed two ambulances if the second ambulance only went out twice in the previous year.
Boyceville, like many rural ambulance services, does not have enough EMTs on the roster to staff a second ambulance if a second ambulance is needed.
One of the EMTs who attended the meeting, who also is an EMT in Colfax, said an example of why a second ambulance is necessary is an incident that happened with one of the Colfax ambulances when the transmission went out.
Because of supply chain issues for parts, the repair took three months. Without a back-up ambulance, Colfax would have been out of service for that length of time, he said.
Without a back-up ambulance, Boyceville would have to pay the service agreement amounts to have an ambulance respond in the Boyceville district, he noted.
Boyceville has service agreements that amount to $500 per run for Colfax and Glenwood City when Boyceville is unable to respond to a call, and anywhere from $750 to about $1,200 per run for Menomonie.
In recent months, Boyceville has not paid for any service agreements for outside ambulances, but earlier this year, the service was paying $6,000 to $7,000 per month in service agreements.
A new ambulance would make it easier for EMTs to take care of patients, and that will make it more attractive for EMTs to work in Boyceville, said Peter Score, representative for the Town of Sheridan and chair of the ambulance district board.
“I want to be frugal. I don’t want to be cheap,” he said.
Investing in a new ambulance is a benefit for the ambulance service and for the community, Score said.
The Boyceville ambulance district does not have to tackle the financing right away, and Dow can create specifications for the new ambulance and bring back more information to the board, he said.
The Boyceville ambulance district board voted unanimously to put the Flex grant money of $106,000 toward a new ambulance.
Voting in favor of the motion were representatives from the Village of Boyceville and the Towns of New Haven, Sheridan, Sherman, Stanton and Tiffany.
There was no representative at the meeting for the Town of Hay River.
