At the Wilton Select Board meeting on Dec. 29, Wilton Ambulance Service Chief Danielle Gardiner presented three proposed budgets for 2026.
The first option was a baseline operating budget. The second included the operating budget plus a series of capital purchases the service hopes to make in 2026, including new cardiac monitors, power stretchers, power loaders and a new ambulance. The third budget proposal included all items in the second budget, along with the addition of a full-time employee.
“The Wilton Select Board approved, at a bare minimum, adopting the second budget for 2026, though it wasn’t a formal motion. We wanted input from Greenfield and Lyndeborough’s Select Boards,” Wilton Town Administrator Nick Germain said. “We believe all of these items are important, but we also understand the financial impact is substantial.”
Because Wilton shares the ambulance service with Lyndeborough and Greenfield, formally approving the proposal requires a joint decision by all three towns. Representatives from Greenfield and Lyndeborough were expected to attend the Dec. 29 meeting, but they were unable to do so due to inclement weather.
Representatives from both towns attended the Wilton Select Board meeting on Jan. 5 to listen to Gardiner’s presentation.
Greenfield Town Administrator Aaron Patt and all the members of the town’s Select Board attended. All the Greenfield representatives said they were in favor of the third proposed budget, though they planned to discuss the matter further at their Select Board meeting Jan. 7.
“At the meeting, Greenfield residents will have the opportunity to look at the ambulance service’s proposal,” Patt said.
Lyndeborough Town Administrator Geoffrey Allen and all members of the town’s Select Board also attended the Jan. 5 meeting. The representatives chose not to take a position at that time, saying they needed to discuss the proposal at their Jan. 7 Select Board meeting.
Wilton’s Select Board will hold another meeting on Jan. 8. At the meeting, it is expected that all three Select Boards will make a final decision on which ambulance service proposal will be included in the budget. Once a formal decision is made, the proposal will be brought before residents at each town’s annual meeting in March for a vote.
In her presentations at both Wilton Select Board meetings, Gardiner said that she is short-staffed.
“The ambulance service is currently an all-volunteer force, with only one full-time employee, that being me,” Gardiner said. “We’re looking for an additional full-time employee to spread the workload.”
Gardiner also said the ambulance service’s cardiac monitors and power stretchers are one or two years past their useful lives.
The ambulance service is currently fielding two Lifepak 15s, a cardiac monitor that was developed in 2008. If the proposal is approved, the service will replace them with two new Lifepak 35s, which began production in 2024.
Gardiner said the current Lifepak 15s have multiple functions such as monitoring blood pressure, heart rate and serving as a defibrillator. “The 35s can do all of that in addition to communicating with the hospital in real-time using 5G,” she added.
The power stretchers are battery-powered hydraulic stretchers that extend and retract at the push of a button. Their payload capacity is 700 pounds.
Gardiner said the service has come close to maxing out the weight limit of the stretchers.
While they do have stretchers and cardiac monitors, the ambulances currently do not have power loaders.
“Having a power load system in our ambulances will be new for us and be delivered in 2026,” Gardiner said, adding that the devices are a significant upgrade to the service. “They will allow us to perform safely in the field and assist us in the delivery of high-level care.”
Without the power loaders, EMS personnel have to rely on the power stretchers. According to Gardiner, while this isn’t a problem when moving smaller patients, it becomes dangerous as the weight of the patient increases. Lower back injuries are common among ambulance personnel as lifting a patient with a stretcher involves extensive use of the back.
According to Gardiner, her personnel are responsible for manually loading patients into the back of the vehicle.
“Because the stretchers have a base weight of 70 pounds, we’re lifting the patient plus the weight of the stretcher three feet off the ground just to load them into the back of an ambulance. This has caused career-ending injuries for personnel in the past,” she said.
The power loaders would solve this problem by connecting directly to the power stretchers, taking the brunt of the load when lifting the patient.
Gardiner also mentioned the service is working on purchasing a new ambulance and is looking at second quarter delivery in 2026.
“Our current truck is a 2014 Ford F-450,” she said. “We’re upgrading to an F-550 for the larger chassis. We try to get as much use as we can out of our vehicles with their given life expectancy, but the work takes a toll on the chassis, so we need something a bit more durable.”
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, ambulance services could expect a new vehicle within a year of purchase, but supply chain issues during the pandemic pushed the delivery time up to three years, she said.
“Because F-450 and F-550 chassis aren’t found on everyday vehicles, they’re not always readily available, so the wait time is significantly longer than what you’d get on passenger-sized chassis like the F-150 or F-250,” Gardiner said. “Fortunately, we’re expecting to have the new vehicle sometime later in 2026.”
Gardiner said the purchases of the cardiac monitors, power stretchers, and power loaders would be financed by the manufacturer with 0% interest rate for five years with a $60,000 down payment and funded with the use of Wilton Ambulance Service’s revolving funds balance.
“Wilton Ambulance operates on a revolving fund,” according to Gardiner. “The down payment will come from that fund.”
Gardiner stated the revolving fund is essentially a checking account. While an excess fund, which the service doesn’t have, is spent at the end of the year, the revolving fund doesn’t have an end-of-year spending requirement.
“Whatever goes into the fund gets saved and carried over to the next year until something that requires attention pops up. In this case, it’s equipment replacement,” Gardiner said.
Because there is no fundraising in place, taxpayers would cover the costs over a set number of years. The equipment costs would be covered over a five-year span, while the new ambulance would be covered over seven years. The exact amount taxpayers will cover is contingent on insurance reimbursement and the service’s percentage of use by each town.
A second full-time employee would cost about $55,000 per year. The combined cost of the new stretchers, power loaders and cardiac monitors is $278,911.87. The estimated cost of the ambulance is $344,000.
Because the ambulance service is split among the three towns, each town’s responsibility for the cost of the purchases will be determined on a percentage-of-use basis in conjunction with the calculated insurance reimbursements for the year.
“As an example, if the purchase cost was $100,000 and the ambulance service was reimbursed $20,000 by insurance, the net cost to taxpayers would be $80,000,” according to Gardiner. “From there, each town’s contribution would be based on the town’s use percentage. If Wilton used the service 50% of the time during a given year, its residents would contribute $40,000 in taxes that year.”
If there are no objections to the purchases during the collective Select Board meeting in Wilton on Jan. 8 or at the individual town meetings held in March, all the new units are expected to go live in the second quarter of 2026.