The Hermon Town Council is again divided over whether to provide financial support to the town’s volunteer ambulance service, which has accrued $350,000 in debt since it lost town funding in 2010.
The Hermon Volunteer Rescue Squad, which has provided ambulance services to Hermon and its surroundings towns since the 1970s, has struggled recently to generate enough annual revenue to pay its bills, according to volunteer Sherman Mason.
The nonprofit squad has relied solely on billing medical patients for funding since town councilors cut its subsidy 8 years ago — a move that tore a rift between councilors and the public. Those tensions have resurfaced amid this newest financial peril.
On Thursday, councilors will meet to discuss options to bail out the service — including one that would have the town absorb its debt in exchange for ownership of the service’s newly renovated building on Billings Road, Council Chairman Steve Thomas said. Documents summarizing the squad’s financial situation are posted to the town’s website.
The plan is not universally backed by the council, based on discussions at a recent meeting. The meeting is expected to be tense, Thomas said — not unlike the acrimonious spat that occurred over the decision to cut the service’s funding nearly a decade ago.
Back then, the issue pitted councilors — including several who believed creating a municipal ambulance service would turn a profit for the town — against many in the public who felt attached to the local squad. Ultimately, the public defeated the council’s move to end the service entirely, but the service still lost its annual subsidy, which varied in an amounts every year, Thomas said.
Since then, the service has operated independently. But in the last three years, it’s done so at a budget shortfall, because its operational costs have exceeded the reimbursements it gets from insurance companies, according to financial documents. Of the 650 calls is responded to during its last fiscal year, only 265 were billable, Thomas said.
This time around, councilors appear to agree on keeping the service, but not on a plan on how to make that happen.
“There’s support across the board to help them, it’s just how we help them” that’s caused disagreement, Councilor John Snyer said.
During Thursday’s workshop, councilors are expected to review the service’s finances and debate the proposed plan to take on the debt in exchange for the building, Thomas said. Councilors will have the chance to suggest alternative plans, as well.
Thomas said Thursday’s discussion comes after a majority of councilors repeatedly voted to table the meeting at recent meetings — delays that forced the town to miss its deadline to put a funding plan on the June ballot, he said. Now, a special election would be required to decide a way forward, he said.
It’s unclear what will happen to the service if the town denies it enough financial support.
But despite that unknown, Mason assured the squad has no plans to leave town.
“We’re not going to throw up our hands and leave,” he said.
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