By MES Dispatch Staff
The Briefing
- A city audit of the Sacramento Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Division found that nearly 40% of the department’s 98,157 EMS calls between July 2023 and June 2024 were classified as low-acuity, non-emergency incidents.
- The volume of non-emergency calls consumed more than 1.2 million minutes of emergency personnel time and cost the city more than $4.6 million during the review period.
- Calls linked to individuals experiencing homelessness accounted for nearly 20% of all EMS responses, with approximately 37% of those classified as medical non-emergencies.
- The audit — presented to Sacramento’s City Council Budget and Audit Committee — recommends expanding alternative response programs, nurse triage hotlines, ride-share transport, and behavioral health diversion strategies.
- City officials acknowledged cost barriers to full implementation, as Sacramento works to close a $66.2 million budget deficit ahead of a June 9 budget vote.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A city audit released in late May 2026 found that nearly 40% of calls handled by the Sacramento Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Division during fiscal year 2024 were low-acuity, non-emergency incidents — tying up ambulances, paramedics, and fire apparatus at a cost of more than $4.6 million to the city, according to the Sacramento City Auditor’s Office.
The audit examined 98,157 calls responded to between July 2023 and June 2024, finding that a significant portion required no emergency intervention. Emergency personnel spent more than 1.2 million minutes on those non-emergency calls during the period. The report was presented to the City Council’s Budget and Audit Committee on Tuesday and comes as city leaders work to close a $66.2 million budget deficit, with a final budget vote scheduled for June 9.
The audit identified homelessness-related calls as a major contributor to the low-acuity call volume. Of the 19,020 EMS responses linked to individuals experiencing homelessness during the review period — representing nearly 20% of all responses — approximately 37% were classified as medical non-emergencies. Those calls were concentrated primarily in downtown and midtown Sacramento. Sacramento Fire Department Captain Justin Sylvia, a department spokesperson, noted that unhoused callers frequently require assistance for non-urgent matters such as transportation to medical appointments or treatment for chronic conditions, rather than life-threatening emergencies. He also noted that EMS call volumes have grown at nearly twice the rate of department staffing since before the COVID-19 pandemic — rising 15.1% compared to a 6.1% staffing increase.
The audit recommended several alternative response strategies to divert low-acuity calls from traditional emergency resources, including a nurse triage hotline to provide real-time phone-based medical guidance, ride-share services for non-emergency hospital transportation, expanded behavioral health and street outreach response teams, and broader deployment of mobile crisis clinicians. City Auditor Farishta Ahrary stated that redirecting non-emergency calls to appropriate alternatives would preserve emergency capacity for genuinely life-threatening incidents.
However, the Sacramento Fire Department said cost remains a significant barrier to implementing the recommended measures at scale. Sylvia stated that a nurse triage line would cost between $500,000 and $750,000 annually — funding the department does not currently have — and that a ride-share program would similarly require budget resources that are not presently available. In the interim, the department has partnered with Medic Ambulance to provide four basic life support ambulances and two alternative transport destinations — including sobering and mental health facilities — as a lower-cost diversion measure. Ahrary noted that the city’s financial constraints led auditors to focus the report’s recommendations on call management strategies rather than infrastructure expansion.