WAUPUN — The City of Waupun hosted an Intergovernmental Session between the City and surrounding townships Tuesday night to present the findings of a report on the City and Community Fire and Rescue Departments.
The report was conducted by consultant Tim Franz from Public Administration Associates LLC, who worked with the Waupun Fire and Rescue Department and surrounding townships to analyze current operations.
The final report was over 100 total pages including appendices, with the presentation distilling its most important points into about 35 slides. These slides included current analysis, various statistics, and recommendations on how both Fire and EMS could move forward in Waupun.
“Fire service is already provided at a strong level in Waupun, so this report was looking at the current situation to see what it’s going to take to maintain things at that level, with several options for doing that now, and in the future,” Franz said.
“It also looked at some options for maintaining and improving the level of emergency medical services in the city, and what it would look like if it was provided by the city for the surrounding towns,” he said.
The main question of the report was about the feasibility of merging emergency services from the surrounding townships—Chester, Trenton, and Waupun—with the City of Waupun.
Essentially, the report found that combining resources would be a major cost-saving measure for both the City and the townships. Merging the Department would also make emergency management much more efficient for the region.
One major issue cited by the report was the growing needs for staffing, both in hiring for the Department and retaining long-term members. It found that the current staffing model would need to be reworked to retain staff, or reworked to hire full-time on-premise personnel instead of relying on on-call volunteers.
The presentation and questions went for about two hours before adjourning.
“I’m glad we had a good turnout of firefighters and EMRs,” Mayor of Waupun Rohn Bishop said following the meeting. “The town chairmen were all here, the Fire Chief and the Police Chief and the entire City Council attended. So, if nothing else, we’re all getting on the same page with the financial burdens and what we need to do with fire and ambulance going forward.”
“No decisions have been made and those are long-term discussions, but at least everyone’s on the same page, even if we don’t all agree,” he said. “I know not everyone here tonight agrees, but everyone at least saw the numbers and where we’re at and what the long-term struggles are for fire and EMS service.”
Mayor Bishop has been pushing for reform in the Fire and EMS service in Waupun, and hopes the City will pass a Public Safety referendum next April.
Along with the City Council and township chairs, the meeting was attended by members of the Waupun Fire Department and EMR program and members of the Police and Fire Commission.
No action was taken at the session with action items to be brought up at the City Council meeting scheduled for May 28.
The press release and presentation can be found here: https://www.cityofwaupun.org/administration/page/fire-and-emergency-response-staffing-study
Updated: 7:56PM 5/1/24
