Madison would get a 10th ambulance & crew under mayor’s budget proposal

MADISON, Wis. (WMDX) – Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway is proposing the city get a 10th ambulance and ambulance crew. 

For weeks, the mayor has been unveiling parts of her operating budget proposal for next year. She released the whole budget on Tuesday, and announced her plan includes a tenth ambulance company. 

Rhodes-Conway said Madison is growing by nearly 5,000 people each year. That’s caused issues with housing, the budget, and city services. A growing population means more calls to 911, and specifically the fire department. She said firefighters and EMS are getting almost double the number of calls they were 20 years ago. 

“Last year alone, Madison Fire Department responded to close to 44,000 incidents across our community. EMS calls accounted for 67% of these incidents. It’s about 30,000 requests for ambulances each year, and the demand is just growing,” Rhodes-Conway said. “There are more than 200 times last year when every single one of our ambulances was out responding to a call, and we have several units who are approaching 5000 runs per year. That’s not sustainable as our community continues to grow.”

Her proposal would fund another ambulance, and nine paramedics. The fire chief would get to choose where to place that ambulance and crew.