Lack of volunteers is at heart of ambulance issues

Taylor County residents need only to look as far as their next property tax bill to see the impact volunteering has on the community.

Taylor County property owners will see an increase in the county tax levy this December driven by skyrocketing costs to adequately staff the county’s ambulance service. As the number of on-call volunteers has declined, the service has had to rely on paying full time staff members to provide needed coverage.

On Wednesday, members of the Taylor County Finance and Personnel committee budgeted nearly $2 million for a new contract with Aspirus to continue operations of ambulance services in the county. This is more than double the previous amount of about $690,000 a year that taxpayers subsidized the area-wide ambulance service.

For decades, the county and Aspirus have partnered to provide ambulance service to area residents and visitors. Through most of that time, the service was strong and successful due to the commitment of long-time, on-call volunteers who would commit to covering shifts and responding when called to do so.

While there has been plenty of fingerpointing about how it has come to a head now, the reality is that staffing issues have been festering for many years with a shortage of younger people stepping up to replace older ones that retire or need to leave the service. The stresses of the past few years, especially on healthcare, have only accelerated that process. This is not unique to Taylor County and is something that has impacted communities across the country.

Emergency Medical Services are essential, all of us will need them at some point in our lives. However, this could be the harbinger of things to come for other services that rely on volunteers.

Area fire departments have, at times, struggled with finding volunteers willing to fill their ranks. Again, this is part of a national trend. The result is closures and consolidations of rural fire departments impacting service to residents. If the trends continue, communities may be faced with the similar choice of needing to pay to staff fire halls.

Beyond these services, volunteers are also essential in schools, libraries and in community organizations and activities. Without volunteers, community literacy and reading programs would not happen. Without volunteers, events like parades, concerts and community festivals would not happen.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 Volunteering in America Report found 60.7 million adults (about 23.2% of the population) volunteered more than 4.1billion hours providing an economic value of $122.9 billion.

There are many very valid reasons why people need to step away from volunteering their time and talents. Family commitments, job responsibilities, and simply being burned out are all understandable reasons to need to step back from volunteering for a time. However, as the census report notes, there are more than 75% of Americans who are free riders, benefiting from the volunteer hours put in by their neighbors, but not stepping forward themselves.

As English playwright John Heywood wrote, “Many hands make light work.” This was true more than 450 years ago when he first wrote those words and it is true today.

For those who do give of your time, talents and treasure, thank you for your work in helping to lighten the load. The challenge is in getting others to help carry that load as well.