NEWPORT — With a continuing rise in call volume for its ambulance service but no additional staffing due to budgetary constraints, the town is considering the option of contracting with an outside agency for coverage.

The town has issued Request for Proposals and responses are due Friday, Dec. 20.

Town Manager Kyle Harris emphasized this week that no decision has been made on the future of the town’s ambulance department and this is just another option the town wants to review.

“We have no set direction at this time,” Harris said, adding that this is not the first time the town has given thought to a different approach for providing ambulance coverage to the town’s 6,000 residents. Newport Ambulance also serves the surrounding towns of Lempster, N.H., Croydon, Goshen, N.H., and Sunapee but the RFP is for Newport coverage only.

Harris said the town’s financial ability to increase staffing is limited. Voters last year defeated the proposed town budget and a default budget was implemented.

Newport Fire Chief Steve Yannuzzi painted a grim picture of the ambulance department’s staffing situation at a Selectboard meeting last month. Though the department is fully staffed with six full-time firefighters who are certified as advanced emergency medical technicians, the department is short staffed for per diem and on-call members with a total of 28, six of whom are not on call because they work or live outside of the area. On average, there are 67 hours a week with no per diem, leaving the full-time staff vulnerable when calls come in, the chief said.

“There is just not enough personnel for every available shift,” Yannuzzi said. “We struggle finding consistent per diem help. As the department’s call volume continues to increase, the current staffing model is unsustainable. That is why it is crucial we look at staff.”

Contacted this week, Yannuzzi referred all questions to the town manager.

Deputy Newport Fire Chief David McCrillis, who has been with the department since 1993, highlighted the call increase over his 31 years.

“When I first joined the department, we ran 275 to 285 calls a year,” McCrillis said at the Selectboard meeting in November. “Now we are looking at 1,700 and we are doing it with less people. Running these calls with so many less people becomes exhausting. Not only exhausting but dangerous at times.”

In 2005, McCrillis said he worked in the department for about 13 months in an overnight shift every four days and in that period, he went out once at night.

“Now they go out almost every night, sometimes twice a night,” McCrillis said, adding that relying on call personnel is risky because they have full-time day jobs so it is hard to expect them to want to be out at 2 a.m. for a couple of hours on a call.

“It is just not a desirable shift,” McCrillis said. “We are way understaffed and eventually there will be two or three ambulances out and there will be nobody here (at the station).”

In his presentation, Yannuzzi showed call volume jumping from 1,438 in 2020 to 1,736 in 2023. He said rescue calls for this year are up 21% over 2023.

Yannuzzi said at the Selectboard meeting said he plans to include another full-time EMT this year and another one next year in his budget requests. He noted that municipal emergency services departments around the state are in the same predicament as Newport. 

“I know we are under a budget crunch but that does not make the problem go away,” Yannuzzi said.

Selectboard Chairman Jim Burroughs said as the board begins its budget review for the 2025-26 fiscal year, it wants to put everything on the table for the ambulance department and see where the best cost is for the 24-hour coverage residents expect.

“Right now we are on a fact-finding mission,” Burroughs said.

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.