Eight months into its first year as a district, the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Service reports that it is meeting all of its goals, offering in-house Advanced Life Support and improving its response time.

Sylvie Rainaldi, Trustee and Executive Board Member for the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps (TOMAC) met with the Montgomery Town Board recently for their quarterly update, as stipulated in their contract with the district that came into being on January 1, 2023.

“So the first part of our contract is the staffing of ambulances,” Rainaldi said. “So what we provide to the town is one ambulance staffed 24/7 as a basic life support vehicle, which is staffed with two EMTs; a second ambulance, which is staffed at seven days a week for 12 hours a day; and additionally, a paramedic providing advanced life support, in addition to those two ambulances that was laid out in the contract. That is what we provide to the town since January. In addition to that, we have some goals as far as our call response times.”
Town Supervisor Ron Feller said TOMAC currently has four ambulances plus the (non-transporting) fly car.

“Of the four ambulances, three of them are paid in full, which is really good,” Feller said. “One of them is older. It’s a couple hundred thousand dollars purchase, but they got three of them paid in full and they’re maintaining them real well.”

The ambulance district includes the Villages of Montgomery and Maybrook as well as the unincorporated portion of the town. It presently does not include the Village of Walden, which is scheduled to join the district in January of 2024.
In the meantime, however, Walden has contracted with TOMAC to provide service to the village. Feller reported that Walden recently made a payment of $136,000 to cover 2023.
“So we are funded where we should be funded,” Feller said. “Everything’s going along well. Thank you.”

Rich Willey, chief of operations is now a full-time paramedic.

“I was hired part time, January 2023. And basically the way that my contract was written is once we went live with Paramedics in the town of Montgomery, I would transition to full time,” Willey explained. “So as of June 1, I transitioned to full time with the implementation of paramedics. So just a quick operational update. As far as who provides (Advanced Life Support) ALS services at the town of Montgomery, we now have our own in-house paramedics. As of June 1, we hired three full time paramedics, and we have six, seven additional part time per diem paramedics as well that help fill the schedule around the full timers. But that does include one full time every day.”

Because they can now offer their own ALS service, TOMAC has terminated its contract with Ambulnz, a Newburgh-based private ambulance service. Ambulnz has been providing ALS to residents while TOMAC got through the application process to take over these ALS services.

“We kept a very good relationship with Ambulanz,” Willey said, “and we still have contacts with them to supply us with any mutual aid if need be and vice versa if they need any help that we’ll go to them and help them out.”

Willey said TOMAC currently has 13 full-time employees.

“Eight of them are EMTs and three of them are paramedics,” he said. “Two management personnel, myself, and we have a (Basic Life Support) BLS supervisor that’s also full time. There are also 22 part-time employees - 18 EMTs and four paramedics, along with a part-time business financial manager that helps with our finances.”

Rainaldi noted that the ambulance service has been averaging 224 calls per month, with an all-time high of 236 in May.

“Our average response rate is averaging for the whole year at 96 percent,” she said, “but in the last three months have been 97 or 98 percent. Last year, I think our rate was 88 percent and our goal is 80 percent.”

There’s even better news. In July, they answered 100 percent of their ALS calls. That’s double the percentage of last year.

“Not one ALS call was dropped,” Rainaldi said. “Every patient that needed it received it. We did not have to transport any patients at the Basic Life Support level because no paramedic was available. So that is really the goal that we set out for. I’m just super pleased to announce that we are achieving those goals, if not exceeding them for the town so that you guys are just in a safer community and getting that emergency medical services that you’re looking for.”