Troy council approves Star EMS contract after RFP that produced a single bid; Universal Ambulance says technical upload error prevented its proposal

Troy City Council voted Aug. 25 to award emergency medical services (EMS) to Star EMS under a two‑year contract with up to three additional one‑year renewals after a city RFP drew a single responsive bid. The council approved the measure on a unanimous voice vote after months of review and public comment.

City staff and council framed the decision as an effort to reduce response times for priority 1 medical calls. According to the proposal and committee briefing, the initial deployment is performance‑based and requires Star EMS to meet a 90th‑percentile travel time target of six minutes for priority 1 calls; if that standard is not met during the evaluation period, the city can require Star to switch to a dedicated ambulance deployment (described in committee documents as the “5‑day/4‑night” advanced life support staffing option).

The EMS procurement drew public comment from representatives of the incumbent provider, Universal Ambulance. Vince Warrias, acting director of EMS for Universal, told council that his organization “was unable to upload our proposal to the…