LISBON — After a first reading at a previous meeting, town councilors will consider the second reading of an ordinance to create a town emergency medical services department — stemming from an interest in taking over Lisbon Emergency, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

The benefit of having a town-operated service is being able to maintain good patient care and ensure that residents have access to emergency services, Town Manager Glenn Michalowski said.

Having a town-operated EMS department would give the town better control over operations and expenses, he said. It also gives the department the ability to seek grants and other types of revenue that are not available to private nonprofits.

There would also be opportunities to train collaboratively with the police and fire departments on scenarios such as a mass casualty event, Michalowski said.

Lisbon Emergency’s board of directors must vote to dissolve the nonprofit and allow the town to take it over, which has not yet happened. Because of this, the town has not invested a lot of time into what that transition would look like, instead staff have focused on crafting the EMS ordinance.

“It’s early in the process,” he said. “We’re still kind of developing the framework, so to speak, and once that’s done we’ll get into what (a town/department merger) looks like and how it happens, if it happens.”

If Lisbon Emergency board members decide not to dissolve the nonprofit and keep the ambulance service private, the ordinance would stand but the town would not appropriate funding for it. Instead it would continue to contract that work out, Michalowski said.

In the proposed ordinance, the department would operate as its own department and not under fire or police, he said. There would be a chief to be appointed by the town manager and a deputy chief.

If Lisbon Emergency were taken over by the town, the town would maintain status quo, Michalowski said, which would include keeping current staff and management. However, state mandates may require that the chief position be advertised to allow for a competitive hiring process — though he needs to look into those requirements more.

Contracts with Bowdoin and Bowdoinham would be honored, with the idea that service contracts with those towns would be maintained, Michalowski said.

It cost the town $532,974 to renew its contract with Lisbon Emergency for fiscal year 2025, he said. That estimate stands at $626,221 for fiscal year 2026, according to next week’s meeting documents posted on the town website.

He does not expect Lisbon Emergency’s budget to change much in the next year if the town takes over the department but he is still waiting on information from the town’s workers’ compensation carrier to get a more accurate cost estimate.

“A rough approximation gives us a range between a slight savings to a slight increase on operating costs pending negotiations and Lisbon Emergency’s board approval,” according to meeting documents.

Last year during workshop discussions, Lisbon Emergency staff presented the idea of making the nonprofit a town-run department but at that time councilors opted to extend the town’s contract with the service instead. Councilors directed Michalowski to reactivate the Public Safety Committee to look at the service.

Lisbon residents formed the service after a teen died in a car accident in the 1970s while he was waiting for an ambulance to come from Lewiston, according to the department’s website. It serves about 12,000 residents in Lisbon and Bowdoin.

Revenue has become more of an issue for private EMS departments. Often departments struggle to make enough money through billing customers to cover how much it costs to operate the service — requiring departments to seek more funding from towns they cover.

As insurance reimbursement rates to EMS departments decrease and staff shortages persist, EMS departments have become increasingly strained and struggle to provide meaningful services to the areas that they cover. Some services in Maine have shut down altogether.

Representatives for Lisbon Emergency were not available for comment before publication.