Joint Fire and EMS agreement lapsed for 17 hours Aug. 1 as Village changes timeline
Luukas Palm-Leis, Reporter
In the midst of on-going discussion and restructuring of public emergency services in Arena, both the Village of Arena and the Town of Arena boards held separate special meetings to discuss extending an existing joint fire and EMS services agreement, which was set to expire July 31 at midnight.
The Village of Arena board met July 30 for discussion and action on the proposed extension, ultimately deciding to decline the original proposed extension date and instead proposed an alternative date.
The Town of Arena Board met Aug. 1 to discuss and accept the alternative extension option.
Village of Arena July 30 meeting
The Arena Fire and EMS Department is a joint venture between the Town and Village of Arena. The current fire protection and EMS service agreement that forms the joint department was originally signed in 2007 and was written to automatically renew on August 1 of each year, unless otherwise indicated by either party. In recent years, a full time EMT agreement was added as an addendum to ensure the department could continue to provide EMS by bringing on two full time EMTs to complement the volunteer squad.
The 2007 agreement primarily funds the fire and EMS department through equalized value funding, delineating the financial responsibilities of each municipality, basing their contributions on the equalized value of property improvements as determined by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. This agreement was set to lapse on August 1, as the Village decided to not renew the agreement at its April 22 special meeting. The action initiated by the Village to terminate the current agreement has led to a flurry of meetings on both sides as they hash out an extension and a new agreement.
The two municipalities are currently undergoing negotiations to create a new agreement(s) to replace the original 2007 fire protection and EMS service agreement. The Village has drafted two separate agreements to govern the fire and EMS department separately after discussing concerns with accounting discrepancies and fiduciary responsibility in the original agreement.
The Village has sent these proposed agreements for the Town to review. The municipalities decided they will proceed with negotiations through attorneys. Because of this ongoing process, the municipalities were not expected to reach agreement prior to the current contract’s expiration date, prompting the need for an extension.
The Town of Arena originally proposed extending the agreement to May 2025, however the municipalities ultimately agreed on extending through November 8, 2024.
Opposing May 1, 2025 proposal
At the July 30 meeting, Village Trustee Melissa Bandell was opposed to extending the agreement to May 2025 and instead proposed the board should shorten the extension date so that it can have new agreements approved by November before entering the 2025 budgetary process.
Trustee BeccaRaven Uminowicz questioned why some members of the board were against extending the agreement to 2025. Village President Kate Reimann echoed Bandell’s sentiment of needing the Village’s budgets by November.
Village Trustee Matthew Schroeder voiced concerns that the village may lose EMS and fire service coverage if the agreement expires.
Village President Kate Reimann and Trustees Kathy Stoltz and Bandell all stated — without elaboration or citing any sources — that the fire and EMS district has obligations to provide services already paying out of pocket for ambulance and Fire services. Schroeder questioned if residents would pay higher rates than if there was no agreement in place and received no answer from other board members.
Legal Editor’s Analysis: Would the Arena Fire and EMS department still be obligated to send an ambulance or fire truck to the Village even if there was no agreement in place?
I can’t give a definitive answer right now, but my impression is no. There is no general duty to provide aid. Most of the laws I’ve seen appear to contemplate aid not being required. Without agreements in place to cover potential liabilities, legal and economic, I would not expect any agency to come in and start exercising specialized responsibilities in a foreign jurisdiction. For example, I would not be expected to render legal aid to someone in need of it in Iowa. I do not know if state EMT law completely displaces local law. I do not know whether because of their medical rescue function they could be subject to something like the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act that creates a duty on the part of hospitals not to neglect the sick and injured on their doorstep. But I would be very surprised if this duty to serve outlying communities existed. It would be atrociously bad policy and would encourage communities to reduce emergency services, distribute burdens unfairly, generate litigation and add administrative costs due to instability and inconsistency.
As stated in my last analysis: 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.
WI Admin Code § DHS 110.03 would likely exempt a neighboring provider from any non-statutory requirement to assist a neighboring area that would not enter into a mutual aid agreement with it despite willingness of the provider to enter a reasonable agreement. So there is not going to be any duty to aid unless it stems from the statutes.
The piece I think we’re fundamentally missing is the National Fire Protection Association’s Fire Code, NFPA 1, 2012 edition, which Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services (SPS) administrative code says is accessible for free and provides a link, but the link just goes to the NFPA website and if there is an accessible free copy there, it is very hard to find. I recall requiring this text for what was essentially an arson case many years ago and I had to locate it at the public library.
What the SPS administrative code essentially does is punt to what I recall being like thousands of pages of details (if I recall, the NFPA 1 repeatedly incorporates by reference every other NFPA publication, so the whole scope of what the state has adopted is enormous, and it includes lots of stuff like the curve describing the exact required flammability resistance of pipe coverings in plumbing chases, standards to be met by specified building materials, just hundreds of pages of everything you can imagine) and whatever is there is adopted into Wisconsin law as our binding rules, then the rest of WI Admin Code § SPS 314 is just small exceptions to, modifications from, and selections of particular described standards in, that master document.
Because of this, any intelligent comment would have to refer to whatever the NFPA 1 Fire Code presents. There could possibly be some standard or providing aid in there, though I still doubt it.
It appears to me that communities are required to have fire departments. These fire departments are allowed to be insufficient to secure fire prevention standards by themselves so long as they contract for another service to provide the necessary compliance. I have not noticed an enforcement mechanism directed specifically at fire departments or municipalities other than the withholding or recovery of dues paid as a subsidy to the departments. However, there are general enforcement powers in WI Admin Code § SPS 101 that allow for daily fines for noncompliance with orders. I think in theory, a municipality that was noncompliant could face an enforcement action and its officers be massively fined.
I am really curious about this but there is a ton of material to absorb and it would be good to look at some general treatment of the matter in a legal encyclopedia or treatise.
Some places of note to start your own research:
WI Admin Code § SPS 314.01(14)(a)2.a.
WI Admin Code § DHS 110.34(10)
I’m an attorney, I’m not your attorney. This is not intended as legal advice.
—Gary Ernest Grass, esq., Legal Editor
Alleged overpayment for services
Bandell also claimed she believed the Village was overpaying for fire and EMS services. She accused the fire and EMS department of charging the village extra money and misallocating the funds.
“My opinion is that the whole reason we are not doing the agreement is because of the payments, and this would make us continue to pay more than we should for another year, so I don’t agree with this,” Bandell said, not providing evidence or explanation to substantiate her claims that the Village was paying a disproportionate amount.
“They have found a way, Becca[sic], to charge us extra money, and now they have $400,000 stashed into an account because of all the money we’ve paid. They have found a way to funnel almost $400,000, just shy of $400,000 towards whatever equipment they want because we’re paying so much more for wages.” Bandell said, seemingly referring to the line item in the June 2024 Arena Fire/EMS financials obtained by request that states: “Ambulance $320833.22 [-] Fire Truck or Ambulance replacement”.
Uminowicz then again questioned the accuracy of Bandell’s claim.
“I don’t know if that’s so accurate,” Uminowicz said.
“It’s absolutely accurate,” Bandell said, without elaborating.
“What about the fire truck they’re needing to get?” Uminowicz said.
Bandell at the previous July 9 meeting had also claimed that the fire and EMS department had been using EMT wages to pay for the fire department, which was ostensibly the impetus for Bandell’s proposal to break the current agreement into separate agreements and budgets, stating, “They are subsidizing fire operations with EMS,” without elaborating on how this was happening despite questioning from other trustees.
Bandell continued to assert the Village is paying an upcharge on wages, saying: “So we’re supposed to pay an upcharge on wages so they can have a fire truck? Our contribution is supposed to be 30% for equipment, not 50[%].”
Uminowicz responded that she believed the current agreement was 40%.
“It’s almost 50[%], 46% instead of 30[%], and it’s wrong,” Bandell said, without clarifying how she calculated the different percentage.
The 2024 full time EMTs funding and hiring agreement stated that the Village is to contribute $37,774 (38.7%) towards two full time EMT wages, and the Town of Arena was to contribute $59,617 (61.3%) for wages. As of June, the Fire and EMS board budget lists that the Village of Arena has paid $19,872.20 (40%) towards EMS wages and the Town of Arena has paid $29,808.30 (60%).
The current full time EMT funding agreement, which was signed into effect November 2, 2023 for this year and is active until December 31, 2024, is authorized under the existing 2007 fire and EMS agreement.
Bandell then claimed that the Village did not agree to any wage upcharges and questioned the truthfulness of the fire and EMS department in an exchange with Uminowicz:
“It was not agreed upon that we would pay an upcharge for wages, those wages should have come out of the revenue, and we were lied to about revenue. They present the [projected ambulance] budget with revenue of only $25,000, yet there’s $100,000 in revenue the one year and a whole bunch of years prior to that,” Bandell said.
“We have a representative on that board, how are they lying to us?” Uminowicz said.
Bandell currently sits as the Village representative on the Fire and EMS Board.
“When you present the budget it is supposed to represent what you’re doing, it should be accurate. I don’t know why it only has $25,000, that would be a question for the person who prepared the budget,” Bandell said.
“And that’s what I’m saying, where is all of this information? We’re jumping to all of these conclusions,” Uminowicz said.
“I’m not jumping to conclusions, I have the numbers,” Bandell said.
“I don’t see the numbers, and I don’t understand what you are so sure about. And that’s problematic here with this board, is that you’re all very, I don’t know, comfortable with what you think you know. You may know, but you have not shown me as a new trustee anything that makes me be able to be confident that what we’re doing is actually in the best interest of our village residents. That’s what I am not clear on. That’s all I’m saying. And just you telling me that this was what’s right isn’t quite what I’ve been voted in to do. I’m supposed to ask the questions,” Uminowicz said.
Arena Fire Board Secretary/Treasurer Karen Wilkinson said this about Bandell’s claims:
“Since the formation of the Arena Fire Board in the early 1980’s, money has been set aside yearly (if possible) to offset the costs of large expenditure items, i.e.: fire trucks, ambulance. This fund is meant to help reduce the costs for both the township and village when making these purchases. It was never meant to subsidize EMT wages. The last time the fund was used was in 2018 to purchase the current ambulance. The fire department needs to purchase a tanker/pumper truck in the near future.”
According to Wilkinson, the current split of this equipment portion of the budget is 74% Township and 26% Village. This is based on equalized value of improvements annually.
Beginning in 2021 with the addition of full time EMTs, an additional section was added to cover those expenses and became a separate amount that the village and town split. According to Wilkinson, regarding the current percentage split for EMS wages: “This year’s split is 60% of the cost to the Town and 40% to the village. This is based on a 5 year average of calls to each municipality. For the 2024 year the municipalities are paying the costs for 2 full time EMTS with the costs for the 3rd coming from ambulance revenue.”
The “nearly $400,000” that Bandell references is the fire and EMS savings/checking account of $341,000, according to Wilkinson.
“To reiterate, this account was never appropriated for EMT salaries. Why that statement is being said I am unsure,” Wilkinson said.
Additionally, Arena Fire Chief Todd Pinkham had this to say regarding the Fire and EMS department’s yearly budgeting process:
“Every Sept. the fire dept. submits our operational budget. This covers training, equipment, subscription to programs we use and monies towards truck replacement. Any large purchase from budgeted monies has to get approval from the [fire] board,” said Pinkham. “It’s not uncommon we come in under budget at the end of the year so there is no need to take money from other places to pay for things. Our recent large purchases; upgraded boat motor, UTV, rescue tools, have all been purchased by the fire dept. using our fundraising money.”
Valley Sentinel reached out to Tyler Tisdale, service director of Arena EMS, about Bandell’s claims and didn’t hear back at the time of publishing. However, in November 2023 Tisdale shared his thoughts on EMS and working with the Village:
“[The Village] had a referendum to fund public safety, and it was to fund a third EMT,” Tisdale said in November 2023. “It would have been last year’s November election the village did. It passed by one [vote], it was like 289-288. And then it came out. Supposedly, something was written wrong in it. And then the State Department of Revenue said it couldn’t be used. And then it could be used. And then all of a sudden, we didn’t have funding for the third EMT.”
“So now, what helps pay for the third EMT? It comes out of our truck replacement fund. Yes, sir,” Tisdale said. “The Village kind of skimps on paying, they don’t think they should have to pay for full-time staffing.”
“It’s frustrating,” Tisdale said. “The fire department does have a fire truck from 1996 that should have been replaced in 2020 but there’s no money for it, nobody can find it, they just sit there—but they can have all these road projects and at a village board meeting it was said: ‘Oh, we’ll find the money for that.’ So they can redo all this infrastructure but the village doesn’t care if an ambulance gets out the door or not, they don’t want to pay their part of it.”
When asked to clarify at the July 30 meeting how much of the $341,000 in the fire and EMS department’s bank account was paid by the Village, Bandell replied that she did not know, instead comparing it year over year.
“That’s what I don’t understand, don’t they have to have money?” Uminowicz said, before Schroeder continued pressing Bandell on her claims.
“I’m not trying to start an argument, but we’re trying to figure out how much we’re paying in on this, if this is just revenue,” Schroeder said. “The last agreement we signed said we would cover 40% of EMS and 24% of fire.”
“Well that’s the wage line, so you have 40% versus the 26[%], so it would be an additional 14% on the one wage line that we’re paying,” Bandell said. “But this has gone on for multiple years, it’s not a one year thing, I don’t know how many years we’ve paid wages now, was it three, six?”
Alleged manipulation and misinformation
Stoltz complained about the current full time EMS agreement’s 60/40 split, asserting that the values should have been calculated by equalized value.
“It got voted on, like I told you before, with incorrect information, so manipulation,” Stoltz said, without explaining how the information she was given was incorrect or how she was manipulated.
Uminowicz then questioned Stoltz’s claim of misinformation and manipulation, which Stoltz defended by stating that: “The proof is in the fact that it’s supposed to be done with equalized value, they came back with not doing it by equalized value and then told a bunch of fibs about why.”
Uminowicz continued to question the validity of Stoltz’s claim by asking for evidence that she was misinformed about the current budget split, after which Uminowicz asked Stoltz: “Why was that voted on, why did you go ahead and say okay, we’ll do the 60/40?”
“Because I was told lies and misinformation and manipulated,” Stoltz said, again without indicating how she was misinformed or manipulated.
“You weren’t the only one who voted on it,” Uminowicz said.
“Yeah, and I’m just telling you from my point of view, Becca[sic], because I can only state it from my point of view,” Stoltz said.
“We can’t just say we were lied to, we need to see how we were lied to. That’s what I’m saying and you’re just expecting me to believe that,” Uminowicz said.
“Well it was supposed to be done by equalized value, and it was not,” Stoltz said, without offering any details to how the values were incorrectly calculated.
The original fire protection and EMS service agreement from 2007 utilizes equalized value to determine what the Village and Town individually should contribute to the fire and EMS budget. However, the current full time EMTs funding and hiring agreement, which acts as an amendment to the aforementioned agreement, has no statement regarding how the contributions should be calculated or what percentage the Village and Town are obligated to pay for EMS Wages. Wilkinson clarified that it is based on a five year average of calls to each municipality.
Uminowicz re-introduced the question of why the board was unwilling to budget to allow for the May 1, 2025 extension date.
“We’re not going to use the prior percentages, and we’re not going to continue to pay almost 50% of wages,” Bandell said, without substantiating her claim.
“We’re not paying 50%,” Schroeder said, “We agreed to 40[%].”
“It’s 40[%] on this one, what was the prior year?” Bandell said.
“We previously agreed to 40% for EMS,” Schroeder said.
Town Supervisor Andrea Joo responded to an email question regarding the percentages paid by the Village and Town stating: “The 60/40 is the percentage the town (60) and the village (40) were to contribute for the non-volunteer, paid EMTs. I have not seen any EMS funds going to fire department operations or any documentation about an ‘upcharge’.”
New extension
Reimann, Uminowicz and Stoltz discussed how the board had moved towards the paid EMT agreement due to requests from EMS and then how the board was moving to using two separate agreements to negotiate.
Schroeder brought up the point that the board had not responded to the question posed by the Town of Arena that was regarding the Village’s plan going forward, and had just sent the two proposed agreements.
“To be completely fair, you sent a notice of amendment when you sent a notice of termination, then you send an amendment, which was received and dated after the date in which it was required to be sent,” said Schroeder.
“We’ve already had this discussion,” interjected Reimann.
“It doesn’t matter if we’ve had the discussion, it matters that they then sent a letter asking for clarification,” said Schroeder. “And our response was to send them two separate agreements without answering their question.”
Reimann had noted that with the last extension, the Village had requested dates that the Town was available to have a joint meeting of the municipalities.
Bandell made a motion that the Village would not agree to extend to May 1, 2025 and wants a signed agreement by November 8, 2024, for budget purposes.
Reimann and Trustees Brittany Carney, Bandell, and Stoltz were in favor of the motion, and Uminowicz and Schroeder opposed. Trustee Kristen Shea was absent.
Valley Sentinel reached out to Bandell requesting clarification on her statements regarding upcharges from the Fire and EMS department and did not receive a response prior to publishing.
Town of Arena August 1 special meeting
The Town of Arena Board held an emergency special meeting August 1, as the fire and EMS agreement had lapsed at 12:00 a.m. that morning. The Town received a letter laying out the Village of Arena’s position the prior day.
On July 22, the Town Board had initially offered an extension to the Village Board which would have extended the current joint fire and EMS agreement to May 1, 2025, which the village declined on July 30, and offered a new extension with the same terms, but limited to November 8, 2024.
The letter, which was dated July 31 and signed by Village President Kate Reimann, stated that: “The village is not willing to continue to pay the upcharge for EMS services.” The letter did not elaborate on what the upcharges were, how much the upcharges were or how they were calculated.
Upon request for elaboration to the Village of Arena, Clerk/Treasurer DaNean Naeger responded there were “no records” available regarding the calculation of the upcharge.
During the Town meeting, Town Chair David Lucey addressed concerns regarding the lapse in the agreement.
“We do not want any services to be stopped to the Village or Township,” Lucey said. “Nothing is going to change at this point [after the Town signs the extension], that even means that if someone from the village needs assistance, EMS or Fire, that we will provide it for them.”
“We are operating off of the 2007 agreement until we negotiate something new, we have until November 8 to do it,” Town Supervisor Andrea Joo continued.
During public comment, the Town Board addressed a question regarding Village Trustee Melissa Bandell’s concern regarding EMT revenues funding the fire department and the rationale behind separating the two agreements.
“The meeting that I went to Tuesday night was the first that I had heard them really talk about that. And I don’t know where they get their thought of that from,” Joo responded.
“Melissa [Bandell] has been sitting on [the fire] board for six months, seven months. All the numbers are on that report that she gets every month from us. And I think she should know by now that how the rest of the board reacts. I mean we always give her any kind of assistance or any kind of information that she wants. She has never stated that to the fire board. Period,” Lucey added, who is also chair of the Arena Fire and EMS Board.
“I believe this is the third time that Melissa Bandell has sat on the Fire Board over the years. Even the [Village President Kate] Reimann, sat on it and they never brought that up,” Supervisor Bill Gauger said.
This sentiment was echoed by Fire Chief Todd Pinkham in email correspondence: “Village President Reiman[n] and trustee Bandell have [or] are serving on the fire board and have never raised any of these concerns in a meeting that I can recall.”
When the Town board was asked if they would find issue in two separate EMS and Fire agreements, Lucey simply stated “I do.” Gauger continued by saying “It’s a small community, we don’t want to split things up, we really don’t.”
The motion to sign the extension to November 8 carried with all in favor. Lucey signed the document at 5:20 p.m. — more than 17 hours after the Village and Town’s fire and EMS agreement lapsed.
At 5:33 p.m. — 13 minutes after the document was signed and the joint fire and EMS agreement was reinstated — with volunteer EMTs and firefighters still milling around the Town Hall, Arena EMS was paged to a call.
Minutes later, with Town officials and EMTs gone, Village Trustee Kathy Stoltz was observed in a vehicle driving past the Town Hall, taking photographs of the remaining press members, firefighters and a village resident who were there in the parking lot discussing municipal dysfunction.
Looking ahead
The next regularly scheduled Village of Arena Board meeting is set for September 3 at 7 p.m. at the Arena Village Hall.
Town of Arena Board meetings are typically held the first Monday of the month at the Arena Town Hall. Given that the first Monday of September is Labor Day, it is unclear if the holiday will affect the Town’s schedule. The Town Clerk can be reached at townofarena@gmail.com for more information.
Nicole Aimone and Taylor Scott contributed to this story.
Read the entire Arena public safety series here:
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