Perham council backs change to EMS board voting rules

Perham’s ambulance board could soon be able to act without waiting for every member to agree. The City Council voted 3-2 on April 15 to support a change to the Perham Area EMS Joint Powers Board’s voting rules, opening the door to a system that would no longer require unanimous approval before moving ahead.

That shift matters because the board is not a city department but a separate joint powers body made up of 16 member governments, 13 townships and three cities. Under the agreement, each member appoints a primary voting representative and an alternate, and amendments must be introduced at a regular board meeting after 45 days’ notice to all parties. Dropping the unanimity requirement would give the board more room to move on staffing, spending and other operational decisions without one member holding a veto.

The debate lands at a sensitive moment for a service that has grown far beyond its volunteer roots. Edna Township’s EMS information page says Perham Area EMS started in 1990 as a volunteer-based unit and evolved into a 24/7 Advanced Life Support provider. Call volume climbed from 286 in 1995 to 1,702 in 2025, underscoring how much more pressure now sits on the system that serves Perham and roughly a 20-mile radius around the city.

Money has been at the center of the dispute for nearly two years. A special Perham Township meeting on June 26, 2024, ended with a 2-1 vote to withdraw from the joint powers agreement, after township leaders argued over rising costs. Reporting at the time put the collective member cost at $200,000 in 2024 and projected $550,000 in 2025, including a $200,000 ambulance remount. Later that summer, the joint powers board voted 11-4 on Aug. 19 to keep a 70-30 cost-sharing formula based on year-round and seasonal population. Under that formula, Perham Township’s 2026 bill was projected at between $35,000 and $37,000, compared with $24,862 in 2025 and an obligated $27,258 in 2026 before the new formula.

The funding picture remains tight. Edna Township says operating subsidies from member governments cover about 15% of the 2026 budget, while about 82% of ambulance revenue comes from patient or insurance payments. Perham City Council minutes from Feb. 9 show the council unanimously approved a January 12, 2026 amendment to keep the twelve remaining townships and cities in the agreement, a sign that the governance structure has been under active review for months.

The April 15 vote does not change the board’s rules by itself, but it signals where Perham’s leaders are leaning. If the amendment advances through the joint powers process, the board could become less vulnerable to deadlock and more able to make decisions before the next emergency tests the system.