VIENNA — Township officials will have to revisit their way out of fiscal emergency after updates to their plan were shot down at a recent meeting.

Trustee Mike Haddle said Monday that the fiscal recovery board had a meeting, where several concerns were expressed about the township’s updated fiscal recovery plan draft, which included money for a new ambulance.

That part of the plan changed when fire Chief Gus Birch expressed the desire to use the allocated funds to increase hours at the department, according to Haddle at a March special meeting, and trustees approved increasing staffing to 192 hours a week, effective April 1.

“The draft plan we had sent out, they had some concerns with payroll and the ambulance — it was all in the fire fund where they had the issues; I understand what they need to do, what they’re looking at, their concerns,” Haddle said. “I will update the draft; basically, what it did is split the ambulance cost we had projected. We put that in as wages, but we only carried it for two years. We didn’t carry through years three and four.”

Haddle said the plan did not show when the township would eventually purchase an ambulance, once needed.

“Obviously, we will need one — talking with Gus, ours was — we didn’t use it for two years, so that kind of extended the life cycle on it,” Haddle said. “The other thing is, talking with Gus and I got the Medi-Cal billing report, we should be able to adjust the billings on here; the projection we had was roughly $49,000.”

Haddle said the department should be able to reach between $100,000 and $120,000 in EMS billing, which will increase the township’s revenue, but they’ll incur an added cost if including two years of the additional fire personnel to the plan.

Trustee Phil Pegg said the recovery board’s meeting was unannounced, calling it “technically illegal,” adding that the actions are null and void.

“Again, it’s the responsibility of the president or clerk to advertise that,” Pegg said.

Haddle took responsibility for the lack of notice, explaining that he did not get a chance to send one out, which the recovery board asked him about.

“Because it’s all null and void — so you’ve got an idea for next time, but right now, nothing that occurred counts,” Pegg said.

However, Haddle said the concerns presented by the board were still valid.

“Going forward, our plan will actually be stronger, for the increase of revenues and then putting that out; it’ll even itself out a little bit better,” Haddle said. “We’re still on course to get out of fiscal emergency — get out of (the) negative fund balance in the fire department a year earlier than anticipated.”

Haddle said the next fiscal recovery board meeting is set June 11.