County presenters warn Dunn County EMS and volunteer fire services face funding, staffing shortfalls

Officials and local volunteers told the Dunn County Judiciary and Law Committee that emergency medical services (EMS) and volunteer fire departments across the county face rising costs, falling volunteer numbers and growing difficulty meeting 24/7 service requirements.

The presentation was opened by Garrett Zasteful, Community and Leadership Development Educator with the University of Wisconsin Extension, who told the committee that Wisconsin has about 360 ambulance providers and roughly 800 fire departments and that statewide EMS responds to more than 1 million calls annually — an average of roughly 2,700 calls a day. "We're seeing a lot of services are not reliable, nor are they sustainable," Zasteful said.

Zasteful and Tony Christopherson, town chairman for the Town of Elk Mound, described multiple contributors to the stress on rural services: an aging population that increases call volume, higher training requirements and operating costs that outpace reimbursements, and competition for staff from hospitals and urban employers. Zasteful said the Northwest region of the state…