Luukas Palm-Leis, Editorial Intern
The Village of Arena Board of Trustees met July 9 for a special meeting to discuss proposed fire and EMS agreements with the Town of Arena.
In the meeting the board discussed the reasoning behind moving to two separate agreements — one agreement for fire services and a separate for EMS services, which were previously covered under a single joint agreement between the municipalities — as well as worked to refine the agreements.
Public Comment
During public comment, Steve Wilkinson, a resident and former village board member who has long been involved in fire and EMS, brought up concerns about the fire and EMS department’s morale due to proposed changes in the agreements.
“The departments need to know what will happen if that doesn’t get signed,” Wilkinson said. “Especially for the full time people whether they are going to have a job or not, that’s their livelihood.”
He continued by noting that the EMS agreement did not contain any statement regarding mutual aid, while the fire agreement did. Wilkinson also said that the EMS service is already committed to mutual aid to the surrounding communities, including Dane County departments and the City of Madison.
Mutual aid refers to the instances where fire or EMS service providers supply emergency response in an adjacent or nearby primary service area when the primary emergency service provider requires additional resources because it has already committed all its resources to other emergency responses.
“Because that’s inherent in state law that mutual aid is provided, it’s part of state code,” Trustee Melissa Bandell said, regarding the lack of mutual aid in the EMS agreement.
“That could be, but I don’t know, it isn’t addressed in your…” Wilkinson replied, before being cut off by Bandell.
“And that is why it’s part of state statute,” Bandell responded, without citing a specific statute.
Legal Editor’s Analysis: Mutual Aid
I looked a little at this. This is by no means a comprehensive guide on mutual aid in Wisconsin, or its statutory requirements.
It’s very hard to be certain when someone says “it exists somewhere” and leaves you to prove a negative, but from what I can see in a cursory look the law generally contemplates that mutual aid is not required, nor even allowed in many instances, without statutory authorization. Most of the laws merely authorize provision of mutual aid or explain how payment for services or indemnification for injuries is administered. There are several places where mutual aid is in fact made a requirement, but in every case I’ve seen, the requirement is to enter into a mutual aid agreement, not to simply provide aid.
I know the public records law is for documents, not information, but someone interested might request Melissa Bandell provide all documents in her possession which she relied upon to support her statement, or which include reference to a statutory mutual aid obligation. It might be noteworthy if the response is that no such documents exist.
I’m an attorney, I’m not your attorney. This is not intended as legal advice.
—Gary Ernest Grass, esq., Legal Editor
Regarding mutual aid, Paul Pustina, a village resident and former village president and board member, said, “The point that was brought up that mutual aid was not in the EMS agreement, just because its part of state statute doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be featured in the agreement, that’s all part of writing agreements, covering all the bases.”
Fire and EMS Agreements Discussion
The board then discussed the fire agreement and Trustee BeccaRaven Uminowicz brought up the change to create two separate commissions for fire and EMS, as opposed to the previous single fire and EMS commission.
“Per the agreement since 2007, it seemed to be working fine, so now it’s not…? Again, what didn’t work right?” Uminowicz asked.
“They are subsidizing fire operations with EMS,” Bandell responded.
“And we know that for a fact?” Uninowicz said.
“Yes… They were using EMT revenues to fund fire purchases,” Bandell said.
Wilkinson and Village President Kate Reimann concurred that the fire department had been using funds from the EMS department for fire equipment and purchases.
“Sounds to me like we should be doing better accounting then within the agreement,” Uminowicz said.
“The idea of having two separate budgets makes it easier to track expenditures, and be more fiduciarily responsible to the taxpayer, because now you can account for every expenditure under this line versus every expenditure under this line,” Trustee Matthew Shroeder replied to Uminowicz. “If fire needed more money that is something that should be addressed in the moment instead of borrowing or taking money from EMS.”
Schroeder went on to note that the separate agreements — which Bandell said were drafted by the village attorney, BoardmanClark’s Paul Johnson — were both not consistent within themselves and with each other.
“If we think that the language in one is better than the other… I think they should align so that it’s easier to understand that they essentially say the same thing, just that one is for fire, one is for EMS,” said Schroeder.
He continued by pointing out a multitude of punctuation, formatting and grammatical errors, which the board worked for nearly an hour to correct.
The board discussed the amount of time that should be allowed to receive payment for fire services before sending charges to collections — settling on a nine month time span.
The board then discussed the EMS agreement and worked for over an hour to resolve similar numerous formatting, verbiage and grammatical issues.
The same statement regarding mutual aid from the fire agreement was added to the EMS agreement. The board also changed the collections time span to nine months to align with the fire agreement.
The motion to accept the edited fire and EMS agreements was carried with all members voting in favor. The agreements as edited will be reviewed by the village attorney and then sent to the Town of Arena for review and negotiation.
According to Town of Arena Supervisor Andrea Joo, the Town is having its attorney draft a proposal that would extend the current fire and EMS agreement until a new agreement is negotiated between the Town and the Village.
The Village of Arena meets for a special meeting July 30 to continue discussion on the fire and EMS agreements. The Village’s next regular board meeting is August 6 at 7 p.m.
Read the entire Arena public safety series here:
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