By Jeannine Otto
Daily Gazette
SUBLETTE, Ill. — The Sublette Fire Department brought its new ambulance, 1-Henry-30, into service March 5 to replace a 2007 ambulance.
The Sublette Fire Department’s members and board are hoping that voters on Tuesday will approve a tax referendum to properly staff that new ambulance and answer every ambulance call.
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“Our goal with this referendum is to staff. The goal is how can we staff and roll the ambulance whenever we have a call,” Sublette Assistant Fire Chief Brian Dallam said.
Voters in the Sublette fire district will see the tax referendum question on their ballots Tuesday.
The need for the additional funds comes from a combination of surging call volume over the last decade – especially since 2020 – along with cuts to federal and state funding.
“Over the past four years really, our call volume has gone higher. We were at 180 and now we’re up to 265,” Dallam said.
If that doesn’t seem high, the other thing to consider is that Sublette’s fire and ambulance service currently is made up entirely of volunteers. And finding volunteers – especially those who are available whenever a calls comes in, in town during the weekdays and who agree to go through hundreds of hours of training to be certified to roll on ambulance calls in any capacity – has become monumentally difficult.
“The crisis across America and especially in rural communities is trying to get enough volunteers. Add to that the burden of getting certified and then the continuing education,” said Nick Dinges, another Sublette assistant chief.
Almost half of the cost of Sublette’s new ambulance was paid for with donations that have included memorials. But federal and state grants that departments like Sublette relied on to help keep tax rates low have evaporated in recent years.
“The board wanted to keep taxes low as possible for as long as possible. Part of what’s happened in the last two years is that federal grants and state grants have basically dried up due to the restructuring of the federal budget and things like that,” Dallam said.
The referendum Tuesday, if approved by voters, would sunset or need to be put before voters again in four years. If passed, funds from the tax increase won’t show up on the fire department’s ledgers until 2027.
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