AUBURN —  The city could mothball its emergency rescue vehicle in November if an agreement with United Ambulance gets councilor approval Monday.

Councilors are scheduled to vote on an agreement with the ambulance company to provide emergency medical transport service to the entire city at their meeting Monday night. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

It’s part of budget-cutting efforts approved in the spring. Fire Chief Wayne Werts said the agreement was settled last spring when the council finished work on the fiscal year 2009-10 budget.

“But then the legal department had to look it over, to make sure we were meeting all the federal guidelines,” Werts said. “We are, but they had to add some legal jargon in there.”

The agreement requires United to have one ambulance on hand that’s able to respond anywhere within city limits within 11 minutes. It also requires the company to respond to all medical emergency calls requiring lights and sirens within eight minutes 90 percent of the time. The company must respond to non-emergency calls within 11 minutes 90 percent of the time.

“Their response time is more like six minutes average, so we expect them to be much quicker than they are required to be,” Werts said. Auburn fire crews response time varies between four and six minutes currently, he said.

Rescue 1, the city’s emergency medical response vehicle, would be taken out of service, according to the agreement. The city would continue to send other vehicles to emergencies.

“But we are getting out of the transporting business,” Werts said.

The change is expected to save the city an estimated $115,000 per year, including fuel costs for the truck and overtime reductions by putting the rescue staff to work in other areas. The city needs to advertise the change for 30 days if councilors approve the agreement Monday, meaning that United could take over city ambulance service early in November.

The plan still has its detractors, Werts said.

“There are concerns from the unions because we will be eliminating a lot of overtime — but that’s where we get the savings,” he said. “And then, when we go to minimum staffing, it will be staff of 13 — not 14 like it is now. We’ll never have fewer than three people on any truck at any given time, but it’s still a change.”

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