By Jim Dayton
The Janesville Gazette
ELKHORN, Wis. — Just about every Walworth County community has asked for the county’s help solving a growing problem--a lack volunteers to staff fire engines and ambulances.
Sharon Fire Chief Bruce Vanderveen said his department has been shorthanded for decades, but now those shortages are being felt around the clock.
City of Delavan Fire Chief Tim O’Neill said employers are reluctant to let department volunteers leave their full-time jobs to respond to daytime emergencies.
Williams Bay Fire Chief Doug Smith said volunteer firefighters and EMTs “aren’t jumping out of the woodwork.”
Across Walworth County, fire and EMS departments have dwindling staff numbers, and they want the county’s help finding solutions.
Ten Walworth County municipalities—the cities of Delavan, Elkhorn, Lake Geneva and Whitewater; the villages of East Troy, Sharon and Williams Bay; and the towns of Richmond, Sharon and Troy—either informally encouraged or adopted resolutions calling for the county to study ways to fix staff shortages.
The Walworth County Board is generally supportive of such a study, but before putting money into the 2017 county budget, County Administrator David Bretl said he’ll have to make sure such a study would be valuable.
For years, fire and EMS departments have relied heavily on volunteers, but economic changes have forced people to push volunteering aside, Darien Fire Chief Justin Schuenke said. While many departments give compensation on a per-call basis, the pay is small. Darien’s firefighters receive $8 per hour while responding. Some personnel, such as those serving East Troy or Lyons, receive no pay.
“Middle class people fight fires. High income people don’t do that,” Vanderveen said. “As middle class people have a hard time getting along … it doesn’t leave a lot of time to devote your time to the fire and rescue services.”
Many departments also carry the burden of handling EMS calls, which outnumber fires. Becoming an EMT requires even more training, leading to a situation where “20 percent of people do 80 percent of the work,” Vanderveen said.
It’s led some departments, such as the city of Delavan, to hire private paramedic services.
Chiefs agree the staffing problem is clear.
The solutions aren’t.
The county study would try to find “optimal solutions and identify impediments to those solutions,” said County Board Chairwoman Nancy Russell. The county does not know what solutions the study may find, but a countywide fire and EMS department is not a proposal, she said.
While some departments have resorted to hiring some full-time personnel, that’s not a realistic option for everyone, Russell said. Doing so would be a huge expense, especially in small communities with minimal tax revenue.
Wisconsin’s constitution does not allow fire districts to collect taxes the way that school districts can, Russell said. Changing that would take action at the state level, but she noted constituents and legislators are hesitant to add new taxes.
If raising taxes isn’t the answer, some chiefs believe merging departments might be necessary. Departments already work together through the mutual aid box alarm system, known as MABAS.
In the event of a large fire or emergency, the MABAS system helps coordinate which departments provide assistance. Mutual aid is meant to ensure that enough personnel are at every call, even if it forces short-staffed departments to help other departments.
“MABAS is something we do because we know we’ll need the help in the future. It does stretch the departments thinner, though,” Vanderveen said. “We go further than ever to help other departments, which takes people away from their families and increases response time.”
Sharon has an automatic aid relationship with Darien, one that Schuenke called a “tremendous success.” Schuenke believes that if municipalities can build a level of trust, expanding auto aid could help staffing issues.
Not everyone thinks mergers are the answer. Lyons Fire Chief Neal Lara said merging would still mean the same number of people covering the same area.
Certain municipalities also may be hesitant to accept mergers. The town and city of Delavan proposed merging police services several years ago, but town residents rejected it, town of Delavan Administrator John Olson said in an email. He expects the same result if a fire department merger was explored.
For many municipalities, having an independent fire and EMS department is a point of pride.
“There’s a lot of pride in having your own identity,” Schuenke said. “At the same time, it behooves everyone to set egos and feelings aside to examine why we’re here to do what we do.”
Without a clear-cut solution, attention has turned to the proposed county study. It would be important to find specific information because such a study would not be cheap, Bretl said, though it is too early to tell how much money it would cost.
Vanderveen supports the study, but he is concerned it will examine the problems, not the solutions. The study’s success will depend on the input and effort put forth by the county and by individual departments, he said.
Russell agreed.
“We need buy-in,” she said. “People will only participate if they feel something valuable will come out of it.”
Most chiefs are optimistic a study would yield valuable answers, but Lara is hesitant.
“What’s there to study? We all know everybody’s short of manpower, so let’s come up with some type of plan to fix it,” he said. “I don’t know what a study would really do.”
Copyright 2016 The Janesville Gazette