By Ken Sainmanaging Editor
East Valley Tribune
CHANDLER, Ariz. — Chandler, the self-proclaimed City of Innovation, usually is in front of its neighbors when it comes to trends, such as driverless cars and blockchain voting. But in at least one case, it is lagging behind and now working to catch up.
The city is preparing to take its first steps toward converting from hiring a third-party to provide ambulance services to its residents to doing that work itself.
It’s a move that nearly all of the Valley cities have already undertaken or are in the process of completing. And the fact Chandler is falling behind its neighbors is adding some urgency to the change.
“That is a very big driver of this,” Chandler Fire Chief Tom Dwiggins said. “The system changed and we are part of that system.”
In 2023, Dwiggins said there were about 300 times when the city only had one ambulance available, and there were 80 times when no ambulances were available.
So far this year, he said, there have been more than 150 times with only one ambulance available and 60 times when none were available — what they call “zero coverage.”
If a call for an ambulance were to come in during zero coverage, then the subcontractor, Maricopa Ambulance, would need to take one from a neighboring community.
However, the nearest neighboring community Maricopa Ambulance works in is Glendale. Imagine how long it would take for an ambulance coming from Glendale during rush hour to respond to a call in Chandler.
Instead, if the city ran its own service, it could reach agreements with neighboring cities to help each other out in such moments. They already have those agreements in place for fires.
Another reason Chandler is considering the switch is cost.
Dwiggins said that under the current system, the city gets reimbursed for 61% of its costs by Maricopa Ambulance, which it collects by transporting patients.
The other 39% comes out of the city’s General Fund.
By switching to its own ambulance service, Chandler would set up an enterprise fund to make the operation self-sustaining.
Council will begin the process of making the conversion in September, when it will have to approve the purchase of ten ambulances, and the equipment and supplies they need.
In all, Dwiggins said the city will need just short of $10 million in start-up costs. That money will come out of the General Fund, but be repaid with interest from the new ambulance enterprise fund once service begins.
City officials estimate it will take the enterprise fund about 49 months to repay the startup costs.
The scheduled date for starting city ambulances is Jan. 1, 2027. That’s because it takes a long time for the vehicles to arrive after being ordered.
“So, January of ’27, one of the catalysts for pushing it that far, is because we have to wait for these ambulances, but we need to get them going now,” Dwiggins said. “They’re not going to deliver all 10 at once, but probably around July of 2026, we have them start trickling in.”
Maricopa Ambulances currently has six units operational at any given time. The plan is for the city to expand that to seven when it starts its own service. The other three ambulances are backups to allow for maintenance and other issues that may come up.
The city will not have to pay for the ambulances until they are ordered, but by ordering them in September, the city will lock in the price and get in the queue waiting for delivery.
The other major step to starting its own service is obtaining the certification necessary to operate. That’s called a Certificate of Necessity and is issued by the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Chandler’s contract with Maricopa Ambulances expires in January 2026, but it does allow the city to renew for one year. Dwiggins said the company is aware of their plans to convert and supports them.
If there are supply chain issues and the new ambulances are not delivered in time, Dwiggins said they should be able to work out an agreement with Maricopa to continue to provide service until they are ready for the switch.
Dwiggins argued that the switch would be good for the city for a number of reasons.
Contractors have high turnover, minimal initial training, lack ongoing training and there is no direct supervision of their employees. They also have different work schedules than the Chandler firefighters they work with.
It would also allow them to be more flexible. They could increase the number of ambulances during surge times, or redeploy them to an area that is getting more calls.
“By having our own ambulance service, we have a lot of options for dynamic deployment and we can move these resources around when we need them,” Dwiggins said.
Then there is the cost.
“We looked at the life of the four-year contract, and if we were to do a one-year extension on it, it’s about $3.1 to $3.5 million that the City of Chandler is going to subsidize to make this process work,” Dwiggins said.
He laid out the timeline for the city to follow if it wanted to go through with the conversion. Ordering the vehicles next month is the first step. It would apply for the Certificate of Necessity in January and expect that to take six months.
They would begin the hiring process of support staff in October 2025, with the actual hires planned for January 2026. The hiring of the new EMT personnel would be by June 2026, and then training would begin in July.
Under that scenario, everything would be ready to go on Jan. 1, 2027.
To start, the rates the city would charge for ambulance service would be the same as the Phoenix Group Rate, which is what most cities in the Valley charge.
The current charge for an advanced life support ambulance ride is $1,157. The city anticipates that number will continue to rise by the time it is ready to start its service.
Once it begins, future city councils would be able to raise or lower the charge, with the goal that revenue pay the costs for the ambulance service.
Dwiggins said by making the switch they can give better care to Chandler residents when they need it.
“I’ve been one of the folks that has been reticent of this in the past,” Mayor Kevin Hartke said. “I do acknowledge that landscape has changed. You’ve really won me over with patient care.”
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