“A robust EMS system is essential for health and safety, yet we face service gaps in our county,” said an Ulster County government release last week. “The 2025 executive budget includes a package of initiatives to enhance emergency medical services through recruitment, training, equipment, and support for multijurisdictional approaches to address these service gaps.”
“Multijurisdictional approaches to address service gaps” doesn’t sound as though county government is eager for an immediate leap into the EMS fray.
New EMS facility in Kingston
Kingston mayor Steve Noble is proposing spending $1.25 million on the acquisition and renovation of a building across from the city’s main firehouse. The new facility would address the overcrowding which grew worse last year when the city added four ambulances and hired 16 new personnel to run its previously private EMS operation.
The building directly across the street from the firehouse once served as a station for a private ambulance company, but has been used as storage in recent years,
The common council is considering authorizing the mayor to go ahead.
Paid EMT’s in Woodstock
The Woodstock Fire District’s proposed budget is up 13.3 percent, largely due to a lack of volunteers and the need to pay for more EMTs. The budget proposes a $260,339 increase to $2.217 million.
“The reason being, as many people do know, there is a significant problem with EMS in the county, actually in the state and in the country, and we are augmenting our fully volunteer organization with paid paramedics and now paid EMTs,” Jeff DeLisio, chair of the board of fire commissioners in Woodstock, told that town board on October 8. Last year, commissioners opted to supplement volunteers on the rescue squad with four paid EMTs. In the 2025 budget, they are proposing more.
Ambulance service tax district in Hurley
Neighboring Hurley is forming a tax district for a full-time paid ambulance service. It is also considering a mutual-aid pact or some other form of association with three other nearby townships.
At last week’s town board meeting, Town of Hurley councilmember Deb Dougherty thanked everyone for their efforts in helping get a town ambulance district started. She read an email of support from Ulster County emergency services director Everett Erichsen.
“As we both know, there’s a lot of work ahead of everyone, but we do feel that the Town of Hurley is taking the correct steps in creating an EMS tax district,” Erichsen had written in the email. “We look forward to working with you on the next steps to address EMS sustainability in your area and Ulster County.”
Hurley, like many other communities in the county, is struggling to keep enough volunteers to answer ambulance calls. The county is trying to come up with a regional solution, but Hurley has decided it is not going to wait.
Kelly said he supported a paid EMS service.
“Given the results of the comprehensive plan survey, residents are urging to keep costs the same or lower for them,” Tim Kelly said. “With that in mind, given the shortage of volunteers, things simply cannot stay the same.”
Kelly responded to objectors who wanted to wait for the county or neighboring towns to handle the calls. “We cannot do nothing and expect others to do for us. This is fundamentally the why of how we have gotten into this situation,” he said. “I’m looking forward to our community taking this burden off our volunteers and paying EMTs fairly.”
New Paltz Rescue Squad takes on ambulance runs in Lloyd
Earlier this year, the New Paltz Rescue Squad added a paramedic crew that’s based in the Highland firehouse, in order to provide lifesaving services to residents of Lloyd. According to chief Matthew Goodnow, the squad was invited to bid on the Lloyd contract last year, and after it was awarded members worked to staff up the new station without sacrificing response times in New Paltz. Providing service in Lloyd is expected to be a boon to residents of both towns, according to the chief. “We’re giving better services to both communities, for less than a commercial service.” The future may include additional expansion, but the chief intends on being cautious. Lloyd made sense because it’s the adjacent town. “I wouldn’t say more is out of the question, but it certainly won’t be any time soon. We want to grow responsibly, and that means slowly. We don’t intend on being the Ulster County rescue squad.”
County involvement
It’s the same all over Ulster County. As the demand for competent services increases and costs keep rising, the localities are struggling to find the most effective forms of organization to provide vitally needed care.
A variety of initiatives are on the county government 2025 menu, including a county partnership with SUNY Ulster on new EMS certification programs, a new EMS training unit in the county department of emergency services, legal assistance to support municipalities in collaborative efforts to close service gaps, and a new EMS grant program to help volunteer services purchase equipment that enables enhanced patient care. The county executive also expects to establish an EMS advisory board to ensure continued collaboration to raise the level of care for residents.
Jeff DeLisio in Woodstock envisions how he thinks county involvement is likely to increase. Woodstock’s fire district is coordinating with the county for cooperative EMS services, he says.
“As the county starts to roll things out, and you’re looking at probably three to five years before it gets totally incorporated, there’s a possibility that the county may put a plan in place and take the resources and move them around so that we may not have paramedics at Woodstock,” DeLisio predicted. “But I think that this board of commissioners we have now is dedicated to always having advanced life support located in Woodstock, including looking at a new advanced life support [ALS] building that would be district-owned.”
It’s somewhat of an irony that progress often takes longer when lives are at stake than when they are not.
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