Ledyard — For the town, making a clean break from its volunteer ambulance company may not necessarily be an easy thing.

On Wednesday, the Town Council is expected to vote on putting out a request for proposals for the town’s ambulance services, after the mayor sent a letter Tuesday formally ending the town’s existing contract with the Ledyard Volunteer Emergency Squad, known as LVES. However, getting a new ambulance company may not be as simple as just requesting proposals because the town may have to make its case to the state in a monthslong process to prove LVES is falling short as an emergency medical services provider.

Despite not technically being a municipal agency, LVES has been responsible for the town’s ambulance services since 1972 and is assigned by the state as the primary service area responder, or PSAR, for the town. This means that LVES is exclusively designated as the town’s main responder to emergency calls. So, although there are other mutual aid ambulances that serve residents in the event LVES is unable to respond, LVES still possesses what is essentially a monopoly as the first option for providing emergency medical aid in the town.

And that is where things could get a bit more complicated for the town if it elects to go in a different direction.

When a town requests to change its primary service area responder, it must apply with the state’s Office of Emergency Medical Services, also known as OEMS, said Maura Downes, a spokeswoman for OEMS and the Department of Public Health. She said that after Ledyard makes its request to the state, one of two things will happen.

In the event the town requests the change and LVES voluntarily relinquishes its rights as the town’s PSAR, the town would enter a new contract with another ambulance service, which would file some paperwork with the state and take over full responsibility for the coverage area in just a matter of days.

However, if LVES decides to not relinquish its rights and instead contests Ledyard’s request for a new provider, the issue then would go to a hearing before the state, a process that would take several months and require the town to prove LVES' failures in supplying emergency aid to residents. LVES would have the ability to appeal the decision, possibly stretching the process further.

“It is not a quick process to switch PSARs when the town is making the request and the current PSAR is contesting the change,” said Downes, who also confirmed that PSARs originally were implemented in the 1970s to prevent ambulance companies from fighting over patients.

It was unclear Tuesday which route LVES is leaning toward.

“Right now, we haven’t decided,” LVES Director Rick Mumenthaler said. “We’ve been improving on what we’ve been doing as far as answering calls and times as requested, and I believe the membership is probably going to want to go ahead and submit a bid.”

Mumenthaler said that, aside from responding to the request for proposals overall, the group has not yet discussed the subject of relinquishing its PSAR rights. However, he said he expects it likely will come up for discussion at an LVES officers’ meeting next week.

Town officials seem prepared to bring the issue before the state.

“My instinct is they are not going to voluntarily give it up, they’ve expressed some level of interest in the (request for proposal) ..." Mayor Fred Allyn III said. “If that is the route we have to take, then I am prepared for it,” he said of bringing the issue to the state.

Allyn added that he believes the town has a “very valid case” based on LVES' performance and concern that the group is not really a legal entity.

And when it comes to making its case, the town likely will benefit from how OEMS looks at these types of cases.

Allyn previously has said that in a sampling of 85 calls that came in over the past several months, 40 percent of the time the ambulance service’s response time exceeded 18 minutes. But, he also noted that the response times of LVES’s three professional employees who work during the day on weekdays is significantly faster than that.

However, when OEMS looks at the provision of services, it looks at problems that occur on individual days, shifts and the like.

“Emergency Medical Services are to be provided 365 days a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day and that is the standard that is expected of all PSARs throughout the state,” Downes said. “Emergencies can occur any day of the week and any time, so failure to meet those expectations would certainly raise questions about the PSAR’s performance.”

c.clark@theday.com