Council approved moving ambulance service to Travis County ESD No. 2, bringing emergency transport and first response under one local public-safety system with stronger availability and accountability requirements.
Pflugerville City Council has approved moving the City's ambulance service to Travis County Emergency Services District No. 2, which operates the Pflugerville Fire Department.
I made the motion to end the contract with Allegiance Mobile Health, approve the ESD #2 agreement, and accept Travis County funding for the transition. Allegiance will continue responding during the transition, and ESD #2 is scheduled to begin transport service on October 1.
This was a consequential decision, but the standard is one I'm passionate about: when someone calls 911 during the worst moment of their life, a qualified team and an available ambulance need to be there. This wasn't happening with our previous provider, and Pflugervillians deserve better.
Pflugerville firefighters already provide medical first response. Every firefighter is certified as an EMT, and more than a quarter are paramedics. They begin treatment when the first apparatus arrives, often before an ambulance reaches the scene. Effectively, more than 80% of fire trucks on any given day are capable of giving Advanced Life Support (ALS) level care until an ambulance arrives.
Under the new agreement, the same local public agency responsible for that first response will also operate the ambulances that transport patients. The agreement guarantees six ambulances and establishes a six-year partnership, with reporting and audit requirements that give the City clearer oversight of the service residents are funding.
This contract creates one coordinated system for staffing, medical response, transport, training, and accountability instead of relying on separate organizations whose responsibilities meet in the middle of an emergency.
Traditional response-time percentages do not tell the whole story. A provider can report acceptable times on the calls it handles while leaving out the periods when no ambulance is available in the system.
Council received reports showing repeated "Level Zero" periods under the previous model—times when there was no available ambulance to take the next Pflugerville call. That is a system-level risk, even if it does not appear in a standard response-time calculation.
The new agreement is designed around guaranteed local capacity, transparent performance reporting, and formal accountability.
The ESD #2 agreement is expected to cost approximately $600,000 more per year than the Allegiance contract. Travis County funding covers that difference for the first year, so there is no resident-facing increase during year one of the transition.
In later years, the full difference is roughly equivalent to a maximum of $2 per Pflugerville household per month if it were borne only by households. In practice, the City's general fund is also supported by commercial property and sales-tax revenue.
I believe it is a responsible investment for guaranteed ambulance capacity, stronger oversight, and an integrated local emergency-response system.
Mayor Doug Weiss and Councilmember Rudy Metayer spent roughly two years laying the groundwork for a stronger agreement with ESD #2, and Councilmember Ceasar Ruiz consistently supported moving in this direction. I was able to take that work, help bring the final pieces together, and make the motion that moved it forward.
At its August 4 meeting, the ESD #2 Board and Pflugerville Fire Department presented me with a letter recognizing the renewed partnership between the City and the District. I appreciated the recognition, but the important result is a stronger working relationship focused on patient care, system reliability, and public safety for all of Pflugerville.
Residents should not have to study a contract to know whether help will come. Our job is to build a system they can rely on. This agreement moves Pflugerville closer to that standard.
Related: review the Fire Department's EMS transition overview and the City's July 14 EMS agenda item, read what I learned spending a day with Pflugerville firefighters, see my priority on public safety, or contact me about an EMS question.
I made the motion to end the City's contract with Allegiance Mobile Health, approve the agreement with Travis County ESD No. 2, and accept Travis County funding for the transition. I worked with City and District leaders to finalize a structure that guarantees local ambulance capacity, strengthens reporting and oversight, and builds on the care Pflugerville firefighters already provide when they arrive first.
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