Emergency Services Department requests funding for ambulance remounts, CORE staffing and North Shore station

The Honolulu Emergency Services Department asked the Budget Committee on March 12 for targeted increases in its 2026 operating and CIP budgets to replace ambulances, add one 12‑hour ambulance unit and move federally funded CORE positions onto the city payroll.

The department’s director designee, James Ireland, told the committee the 2026 request is split among three branches: administration (a 3.5% increase, about $257,000), emergency medical services (about a 4.6% increase, roughly $1.8 million) and the health services branch (about a 5.4% increase, about $75,000). “A brand new ambulance is is approaching a half a million dollars each,” Ireland said as he explained the department’s plan to favor remounts over full replacements.

Those remounts are central to the department’s plan. Ireland said the EMS budget includes roughly $3.0 million to fund about 11 ambulance remounts for 2026. He described a remount as taking an existing ambulance box, refurbishing it and mounting it on a new chassis — a process he said typically costs about half what a fully new vehicle does. The department completed six…