DUANESBURG — Town officials will give the Duanesburg Volunteer Ambulance Corps a fighting chance.

Shortages of volunteers have diminished the company’s ability to respond quickly to calls, forcing the town to rely on neighboring emergency services. The Town Board ordered that if the Duanesburg corps could not staff a response in three minutes, the call would go out to Rotterdam or Schenectady crews. The three-minute rule was considered almost impossible to meet.

However, over the past three weeks, the ambulance service has provided the town with rosters showing the availability of its volunteers. In return, Town Board members agreed Thursday to give the company eight minutes to answer calls, rather than the three minutes set last month.

On days the ambulance service’s roster shows they don’t have enough volunteers, town Supervisor Rene Merrihew said, all ambulance calls will be automatically diverted to mutual aid companies, such as the Rotterdam Emergency Medical Service or Mohawk Ambulance in Schenectady. She said both ambulance services agreed to the new conditions, which were created with the help of county emergency management officials in accord with the state Department of Health.

“If they have a shift covered on the roster, then we will allow eight minutes for them to respond with a crew on the scene,” Merrihew said Thursday. “If no one is covering [the station], then it will automatically go to mutual aid.”

Merrihew said the company is still facing an uphill battle. She said last week, the ambulance service had adequate staff for only three of the 28 available slots.

“They’re very sparse,” she said.

But members of the Town Board acknowledged Thursday the service was making an effort. Board member Martin White said providing the roster each week was a significant step in the right direction.

“We’ve made a lot of progress since last month,” he said.

In February, the ambulance corps came under fire after a dramatic increase in missed calls, as well as an overall slowing of response times. Whenever the ambulance service is unable to respond to a call, it can take more than 20 minutes for another company to arrive under mutual aid.

Company officials blamed a lack of volunteers for the slow response times. Some former volunteers blamed this shortage on Bruce Smith, the ambulance service’s former captain, who they described as persistently undercutting the company’s leadership.

The ambulance service is now under the leadership of Marc DeBraccio, a senior crew chief, until a full-time replacement is found, said Charles Leoni, who recently replaced Sharon Smith as chairman of the Board of Directors. Though Smith is still serving on the board and her husband is with the ambulance service, he said the organization is trying to turn over a new leaf. He urged any former members or interested volunteers to contact him at 895-8816.

“We’re exhorting all past members to come in and talk to us and participate again,” he said.

Leoni said the ambulance service has never stopped answering calls, even under the town’s three-minute resolution. He said crews responded to calls and then called off mutual aid companies once they arrived on scene.

“The ambulances are responding to calls as we speak,” he said.