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Tolland council debates ambulance-fund policy, tables revisions for July 8
Summary
Councilors spent extensive time June 24 debating a draft ambulance fund policy that would clarify how ambulance-billing revenue is used; after multiple amendments and discussion, the council directed staff to rewrite the draft to include ‘fire/rescue’ language and return with attorney review on July 8.
Tolland Town Council on June 24 discussed and then tabled a revised policy for the ambulance fund — the account that holds billing revenue from emergency medical responses — directing staff to return an amended draft at the council’s July 8 meeting.
Town staff introduced a redlined ambulance-fund policy drafted to formalize how ambulance and related EMS revenue will be handled. The policy clarifies that proceeds from ambulance billing are held in an internal fund and proposes rules for allowable expenditures, thresholds and exceptions. Town staff said the draft followed review by the fire chief and the town attorney and that the attorney recommended leaving threshold amounts to be set administratively rather than fixed inside the policy.
Council discussion focused on how narrowly the draft confined allowable expenditures to “emergency medical services” and whether the policy should explicitly allow use for broader “fire” or “fire/rescue” needs. Several councilors raised that most local firefighters are cross-trained in EMS and that the fund historically supported fire-related purchases (such as safety equipment tied to medical response). Councilor Butler proposed revised language for subsection d to broaden authorized use to include equipment and one-time capital needs “related to emergency medical services and or fire/rescue related items,” and recommended striking subsection e, which had required separate council approval for some capital purchases.
Opponents urged caution, noting that charter and capital-appropriation rules already require council approval for large capital purchases and that a numeric threshold for automatic approvals should be clarified. Finance director Mike Wilkinson and the town attorney advised the council that the charter sets capital-appropriation thresholds (discussed in the meeting as typically $10,000 and up for capital classification) and that larger purchases would still require formal appropriation.
Rather than finalizing the resolution, councilors withdrew the initial adoption motion and directed the town manager to prepare a revised draft that (1) expands permitted uses to explicitly include “fire/rescue,” (2) strikes subsection e so the policy better aligns with existing charter and capital-appropriation requirements, and (3) return the revised draft with attorney review for the July 8 meeting. The item was tabled to allow staff and legal review.
