With emergency medical services across the nation dealing with rising costs and hiring difficulties, Butler city officials have been asked to contribute to the city’s local service.

Jesse Haas with Butler Ambulance Service delivered a presentation to Butler City Council during its forum meeting Thursday evening, Feb. 12. He explained the number one problem services like Butler Ambulance are facing is staffing.

“Here in the city, we’re staffed 24/7, 365 (days). Our Whitestown Road station used to be 24/7, but it’s down to about 14 to 16 hours a day because of the lack of staff. The Unionville station also used to be 24/7 and it’s down to 12 hours a day,” he explained.

He said the service is currently about 20 employees short of full staffing.

“Low pay, long hours, increasing workload, mental health risk and bodily harm are some of the reasons people are not getting into EMS,” he said.

As for statistics in 2025, Haas said 3,298 — or about 34% — of the responses the service made were within city limits. Out of those, 2,085 — or about 63% — were transported to the hospital.

“If we don’t transport people to the hospital, we do not get paid,” he explained.

He said one of the biggest financial drains is call readiness at a cost of $3,000 per ambulance per day. He explained, based on call volume, the city would optimally have two ambulances on duty, which would cost the service $2.2 million in cost readiness a year.

As for what the city can do, he said municipalities have been establishing a half-mill EMS tax, but the state’s third class city code forbids establishing dedicated EMS taxes.

“Historically, we’ve just sort of gone about our business, doing our thing, treating the people here within the city with the best medical care that we can give them and sort of hiding under the radar. With the costs of doing business, it’s coming to the point where we just cannot sustain that model much longer,” he said.

He said any contribution would help pay for capital purchases, while revenues would go largely toward staffing concerns.

While no action was immediately taken, Mayor Bob Dandoy said council will be discussing the topic more in the future and did not rule out a future decision on the matter.