The Mad River Valley Ambulance Service – one of only two all-volunteer ambulance services in the state – has prided itself, and rightfully so, for its fiscal prudence and the way it manages its finances.
Through successful fundraising efforts, subscriptions and insurance reimbursements, the service has been able to balance its budgets, buy and maintain a building, train and recruit volunteers while responding to an increasing number of calls per year -about 600 last year.
For over 50 years, we’ve had the privilege of being cared for by one of the premier EMS organizations in the state. The service has an incredible team of volunteers, a state-of-the-art station, excellent equipment, and topnotch training. MRVAS is one of the organizations that contributes as much to our quality of life as recreation does in our community. We’re fortunate.
And now, due to a changing funding landscape, MRVAS needs help from us, not as individual donors, but as municipalities, to be able to proactively save money for capital expenditures.
Ambulances wear out and need to be replaced. Equipment wears out or is legislated out of service and needs to be replaced. MRVAS goes through rigs and gear taking care of us.
To be clear, towns are not required to provide EMS services, although EMS districts (which translates to counties in Vermont) are. There are currently no clear funding paths for EMS to be funded at the district level.
And while there is no municipal requirement that our town governments fund EMS, why wouldn’t we? We fund our volunteer fire departments because it’s critical that they come when needed. Ditto for MRVAS. It’s critical that they come when we need them.
What MRVAS is asking for is a reasonable contribution from local towns each year for the next 10 years. Of all the tax expenses we can’t control including the state’s ever-increasing burden on drivers’ licenses, registrations, property transfer taxes, home heating fuel etc. etc, here is one we can and one that directly benefits all of us. MRVAS folks deserve credit for being proactive here and getting out front with this information and request sooner vs later.
