NEW BERLIN – The New Berlin ambulance advisory board met Tuesday to discuss the future of the village service.

Council members from the towns of New Berlin and Columbus and trustees from the village of New Berlin were on hand to review the current deficit in the EMS budget as well as potential cooperation among the three entities.

EMS Coordinator Kenneth Wiggins reported $5,162 in revenue for January, with 41 calls from the three municipalities currently under contract with the village ambulance. He said in order to continue the ambulance service, there would need to be at least 40 calls per month.

“Finance is the biggest issue right now,” said Wiggins. “We need to increase the percent of recovery and we’ll be doing a lot better.”

Wiggins suggested the advisory board take new collection practices into consideration in order to increase revenue.

“It’s so highly regulated, it’s hard to increase revenue without more calls ... but we do have the ability to charge for other services,” he explained, citing diabetic wake-ups and minor accidents as just a few of the possibilities that could increase revenue up to $20,000.