BRATTLEBORO-The Selectboard voted unanimously July 7 to adopt a set of recommendations aimed to improve public understanding of the town’s ambulance service, capping months of community outreach that grew out of a nonbinding resolution passed at Town Meeting.
The resolution had called for an independent, third-party consultant to review the town’s emergency medical services (EMS) program and raised broader questions about how program finances are reported.
Because board members said they were unsure exactly what residents wanted from that resolution, they formed a two-person working group — board Chair Oscar Heller and board member Nell Mayo — to hold public meetings and gather more specific feedback before deciding how to respond.
After speaking with many in the community, the two recommended a third-party study be postponed until 2029.
A complicated, well-regarded program
Brattleboro has been running a municipal EMS department for nearly two years. The then-Selectboard had commissioned a feasibility study by AP Triton before voting to take over the service, formerly provided by Rescue Inc.
Fire Chief Jay Symonds has said EMS revenue is projected to be about $1.3 million by the end of the fiscal year and that demand for services has been increasing 10% to 20% annually.
No money for an outside study has been earmarked for a study in the FY27 budget.
Presenting the group’s findings, Heller told the board two themes emerged consistently from the outreach process.
“This is a complicated new program where the numbers are fused with the numbers for the fire department services,” he said, adding the overriding intent “was not to revisit old decisions or anything like that, but just to gain a better understanding of this program.”
He said public opinion of the service itself was uniformly high.
“We didn’t hear a single complaint from a member of the public that Brattleboro EMS does a bad job or anything like that,” Heller said.
Regarding whether to commission an outside study right away, Heller said most residents who weighed in preferred to wait, for two reasons.
“Doing a study in a future year allows for more data to be collected because the program will have existed for longer and, also, if we do a study in a future year, we can budget for it appropriately instead of spending unbudgeted funds,” he said.
The memo’s central recommendation is to plan for a third-party study in fiscal year 2029, along with a set of smaller, near-term steps.
Heller said the board wants to “hear specific questions from the public, and make sure we get those specific questions answered” and to build out the EMS data page on the town website, “so when somebody asks a question and we get a definitive answer, we can put it up there for posterity for people to refer to.”
Mayo thanked everyone who “took the time to speak to us and took the time to come to our meetings.”
She said the informal, in-person format of the first public meeting stood out to her.
“It was just the level of conversation that could be held in a more informal setting, such that people could directly talk to each other. And it was a bit easier to hear a question and then get an answer in a more immediate sense,” she said, contrasting that format with a formal public forum such as a Selectboard meeting, “where the thread is lost and the question and answer doesn’t get to the person asking it.”
Mayo said she has compiled “a consolidated list of questions and key points and concerns that I can take to staff” as a starting point for the new web page.
Board member Peter Case moved to adopt the recommendations, and board member Amanda Ellis-Thurber thanked the working group and residents who took part, calling the outcome “really tangible and doable.”
Heller also noted that Symonds and Assistant Chief Charles Keir III attended the group’s first public meeting.
“I felt like everyone left that meeting feeling better about things,” Heller said.
Public questions reporting of costs
Several residents spoke during the discussion.
Heidi Fisher asked why the board settled on fiscal year 2029 for a future study rather than fiscal year 2028, which had been discussed earlier.
Heller said there was no “precise calculation” behind the choice but that it was meant to give more breathing room “than just restarting this conversation in three months.”
Mayo added that spacing it out also allows the town “to break out the cost and the planning across two budget years.”
Resident Kate O’Connor pressed the board on how it plans to get reliable, timely data on EMS revenue and expenses going forward, noting that the town had to file with the Green Mountain Care Board for a certificate of need to start the program “and in that filing is what they said the expenses were going to be.”
She warned the board not to be complacent about costs.
“We have a great case study that we’re going to be talking about tonight of an institution in our town that things got out of control. And now we’re facing — we’re gonna have to cut something,” said O’Connor, referencing the fiscal shakeup at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and its board’s recent decision to close its birthing center.
She also praised the fire department for sharing annual call-volume data at a previous meeting, noting the actual number of trips “is actually lower than last year’s,” which mattered because the fiscal year 2027 budget had assumed roughly 400 more trips than the department ended up making.
“There is information that is not just helpful because I am nosy and want to know it,” she said. “It’s helpful because it helps you folks budget appropriately.”
Heller said revenue reporting “has improved a lot […] in the last year” and that the board welcomes help identifying further improvements.
He acknowledged expense reporting is harder because it involves “multi-use personnel,” adding that “people may not agree on what the assumptions are for how an individual full-time equivalent’s time is split between the two disciplines.”
Once the town hires a permanent finance director, the board can seek “guidance from town staff as to what the split in responsibility would be” between the finance office and the fire department for producing regular reports, Mayo added.
Town Manager John Potter pushed back on the suggestion that cost data isn’t available.
“The information on the cost is all available on the town website under the EMS data. The revenues and the expenses are reported out monthly,” he said, adding later in the conversation, “it’s very easy to overcomplicate this stuff.”
“It’s not really that hard,” Potter said, crediting Symonds with clearly explaining the numbers.
Resident Bob Oeser, who said he had met privately with a working-group member and later submitted additional information by email, asked about the process for answering follow-up questions once the subcommittee no longer exists.
Residents with detailed or complicated questions may have better luck meeting one-on-one with a board member, said Heller.
“I am sure any of us would be willing to get together one-on-one and really explain it, […] and we can work it out and reach a full understanding,” he said.
Mayo agreed, adding she would be happy to make herself available to do so but that “the answer will ultimately come from town staff” and that it’s appropriate to keep Potter, the board’s EMS point person, looped in.
Subcommittee dissolved
After the board voted 5–0 to adopt the recommendations, Case moved to formally dissolve the EMS subcommittee.
Heller explained that the board “didn’t know when we formed the subcommittee that we would be subject to open meeting law and all that stuff.”
“We thought it would make things easier, and it probably made things more complicated,” he said. “Still, I think we did what we set out to do.”
Mayo added that dissolving the subcommittee doesn’t end the underlying work.
“It doesn’t mean that there cannot be further work done on the issue of public relations and conversations between staff, Selectboard members, and the public about EMS,” she said. “What it does mean is that Oscar and I can talk privately about EMS if we want without worrying about what is substantive work in open meeting law.”
The board also voted unanimously to dissolve the subcommittee, closing out the process while leaving the door open for continued informal collaboration among board and staff members and residents about EMS transparency.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.