Brookfield has started the multi-year process of purchasing a new ambulance.
Village trustees on Nov. 10 authorized the purchase of a new Ford F550 advanced life support ambulance from Life Line Emergency Vehicles, an ambulance manufacturer based in Sumner in Lawrence County, Illinois.
According to a village memo, Life Line has quoted village staff a total price of $423,401 for the ambulance, which will take two to three years to be manufactured and delivered.
Village President Michael Garvey attributed the length of the process to “the supply chain [of] equipment and the retrofitting” that needs to be done to the vehicle. According to the memo, the process has increased in duration from 12-14 months to 24-36 months since 2020.
The village has budgeted $177,000 toward the purchase next year for the chassis, worth about $94,000, and the power-load system, worth about $81,000 — a “huge safety device,” said Fire Chief Jim Adams. The system enables a stretcher to be loaded into the ambulance. The hope is that the early payments will allow delivery by the end of 2026.
That leaves the remaining $246,401 to be budgeted in 2027, the soonest the rest of the ambulance is expected to be delivered.
The purchase comes through the Houston-Galveston Area Council, a regional local government association in Texas. The association operates the program HGACBuy, which provides purchasing services to local units of government across the country and vetted Life Line’s quote to Brookfield.
According to the memo, Brookfield’s fire department now operates two ambulances regularly: a 2017 Ford F550 and a 2024 Ford F550. A third ambulance, a 2013 Ford F450, is kept as a backup if either of the others is out of service for regular maintenance or needed repairs. The average lifespan of an ambulance is seven or eight years.
Adams said Brookfield most recently approved a similar purchase order in July 2023 for the model year 2024 ambulance, which was delivered in September, 26 months later.
“If this is the way it’s going to continue, you’re probably going to see this come up every three years now, which is a good rotation to have on our ambulances,” Adams said. “They do get a lot of use.”
