BARRE TOWN — Local officials have taken a step closer to expanding the town’s ambulance fleet to six vehicles, renewed a dispatching contract for the next three years and approved the purchase of a new firetruck.
At its regular meeting Tuesday night, the select board heard from David Danforth, interim EMS director. Danforth was there to pitch spending about $33,000 of the town’s pandemic relief dollars on equipment — including a power loader, a refurbished stretcher and stair chair — to outfit a sixth ambulance for the town’s fleet.
The town used to operate with six ambulances, but has been working with five for about the past decade. Town officials have been considering again expanding the fleet to six ambulances, which would give the town three active vehicles and a back-up vehicle for each active ambulance.
Expanding the fleet has been discussed because the call volume for the ambulance service has increased, a trend that’s expected to continue with the state’s aging population. The town also recently entered into a contract with Williamstown to take over ambulance coverage there, and officials have said expanding the fleet would make it easier to pick up that additional coverage.
The town owns six ambulances. It took ownership of two new vehicles last summer and has yet to add one of them to the fleet because those on the ambulance crew are trying to get everything they can out of one of the older ambulances before it’s replaced. Danforth reported when the town takes ownership of another new ambulance in June, the plan would be to use that vehicle to replace the oldest ambulance, while bringing the currently-sidelined ambulance online to expand the ambulance fleet to six vehicles.
The town had to wait over two years to acquire the two ambulances it received last summer because of supply chain issues and increased costs. Because of this delay, the town jumped at the chance a few months ago to buy three more ambulances, including one to be delivered in June and two more in September. Danforth said the ambulance service may stick one of the September ambulances in storage until spring 2025 and then rotate it into the fleet as needed.
He said he’s been working with town staff on looking at maintenance costs for the ambulance fleet. Danforth said a few years ago, the town opted to buy ambulances with a heavier chassis, which appears to have paid off.
“So far, it’s looking pretty favorable that we can easily push ’em to that 175,000-, 200,000-mile mark without having a whole lot of trouble. We’ve had very few issues with them,” he said, adding the town may be able to skip an ambulance purchase in the future if the fleet is in good enough shape to do so.
Board member Bob Nelson said he was struggling with using pandemic relief dollars, funds given through the American Rescue Plan Act, to buy equipment for an ambulance. Nelson said he understood Danforth was asked to present items for the possible use of those funds, but Nelson thought these items should be budgeted.
“We’ve seen other communities around us that have used ARPA funds for something and now they’re struggling to try and figure out how they’re going to continue to pay for it. And I don’t want us to get into that, fall into that quandary,” Nelson said.
Board member Michael Gilbar said he was comfortable using pandemic relief funds for the initial purchase because the town uses an equipment replacement plan, so replacing this equipment would already be anticipated and factored into future budgets.
Nelson also asked how much one of these vehicles cost and was told about $160,000. He said prior to his time serving the town, if he had heard the town bought a vehicle that cost that much and then mothballed it, he would have been on the phone with the town manager pretty quickly.
Danforth said he only has equipment to run five ambulances and he’d rather keep miles off the new one, with the older ambulance still operating without issues.
The board voted unanimously to purchase the ambulance equipment for about $33,000 using pandemic relief funds.
Fire Chief Andrew Lange, Assistant Chief Chris Day and firefighter Brandon Tessier also were in attendance for Tuesday’s board meeting with a bit of a more expensive ask. They were there seeking the purchase of a new firetruck that would both function as a pump truck and a rescue truck. The truck would cost $866,877. Of that, $844,233 would be financed by the town and the Barre Town Firefighters Association would kick in the remaining $22,644 to pay for the “blackout package.”
The fire department has been operating down one pump truck because it sold an engine years ago. The town didn’t replace the engine at the time because the plan was to replace the current rescue truck with a truck that also had pumping capabilities.
The town sent out requests for bids in November and got two back. Allegiance Fire & Rescue’s bid was for $1,173,754 for a 2027 truck. Lakes Region Fire Apparatus Inc.’s bid was for $839,963 for a 2025 truck.
In his notes to the board ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, Town Manager Chris Violette, who previously served as the town’s fire chief for 18 years, said the fire department’s Truck Committee recommended buying a truck from Lakes Region, both because that truck is much cheaper than the other bid and the town would get the truck two years earlier. With the “blackout package” and an awning added to the truck, the total cost from Lakes Region would be $866,877.
Violette wrote in his notes that the town had budgeted for this truck, but the bids came in higher than expected. The town was anticipating the truck would cost about $700,000. The first anticipated payment for the truck is included in the current town budget.
Those on the fire department explained the “blackout package” would see the truck covered in a black material rather than spots that are currently chrome. The truck would be a combination of red and black, rather than red and chrome. Town officials were told this black material is said to hold up better against salt and brine and is easier to repair. Assistant Fire Chief Day said the local firefighters’ association wanted to foot the bill for the option as a trial run to see how it works out.
Nelson asked whether the black material would impact visibility. Tessier said the material is reflective. Violette said there are pretty strict standards for firetrucks, with designs that take visibility into account.
The board voted unanimously to approve the purchase of the fire truck from Lakes Region.
The board also was presented with a new three-year contract from the Lamoille County Sheriff’s Department for dispatching services. The town started using the sheriff’s department for dispatching in 2011. Barre City had been dispatching for the town prior to that, but town officials were not happy with the service they were getting.
Violette wrote in his notes that the contract calls for a 3% increase the first year, a 4% increase the next and a 5% increase in the third year. This would see the town pay $270,798 in Fiscal Year 2025, $281,630 in year two and $295,712 in year three. The town manager said the current contract saw increases of 2%, 2% and 3% in each of the last three years.
He noted the town has been getting a good deal from the sheriff’s department, where its other customers have been seeing 7% cost increases. Violette also noted the town’s dispatching needs are expected to increase by about 500 calls a year because of the contract with Williamstown for ambulance service.
Board member Justin Bolduc said he wondered why the town was getting such a favorable deal and was told the town is the largest customer for the sheriff’s department. Violette said the sheriff’s department has done everything it can to keep the town’s costs down, “sometimes to the peril of having to answer that question to some of their other customers, of why that is the case.”
While acknowledging the town is happy with the service it’s getting, Nelson said he wanted to again ask a question he asked three years ago: Given how much the town is spending on this contract, why not put it out to bid?
Bolduc responded he didn’t know what other options were out there that could take on the town’s dispatching needs.
Board Chair Paul White said the town will likely have to put the contract out to bid once this proposed three-year deal ends. White said the Legislature has a task force working on possible changes to dispatching, but right now there aren’t many other options for the town. He said the only other local options would be returning to Barre City or using dispatching from Montpelier. White, a retired captain with the Vermont State Police, said other dispatching options could be from Hartford, Shelburne or St. Albans.
Violette also noted the sheriff’s department serves as the town’s Public Safety Answering Point, meaning 911 calls from the town generally go directly to Lamoille dispatchers, whereas other dispatchers receive 911 calls from PSAPs and forward them to local emergency responders.
He said the town has its own dispatch frequency with Lamoille, which has “been a godsend.”
Board member Norma Malone pointed out the town didn’t go out to bid for dispatching in 2011 because the town didn’t have time to go through that process and needed a dispatcher as soon as possible.
White said, “It’s not a bad question (to put the contract out to bid), but I don’t know who else would be willing to take us on right now.”
The board voted unanimously to approve the three-year contract with the sheriff’s department for dispatching.
eric.blaisdell
@timesargus.com
