A proposal to create a town-wide ambulance district within the Town of Montgomery and its three villages had gained fast and immediate approval in the Village of Montgomery a week earlier, but that would not be the case for the Village of Walden.

Walden Village trustees questioned representatives of the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps for more than three hours last Tuesday, ultimately deciding that they would need more information before making a decision.
“You gotta remember, there’s a lot of variables around this room right now,” Walden Mayor John Ramos told Montgomery Town Supervisor Brian Maher at last week’s meeting. “We’re going to do our due diligence. We’re still going to chew on this.”

Maher had been making the rounds of the three villages, attending village board meetings in hopes of gaining support for an ambulance district. His first appearance on Dec 13, gained approval from the Montgomery Village Board after a 40-minute discussion. Later that night, he made the same presentation to the Maybrook Village Board, but was told to come back to a follow-up meeting to answer more questions.

Last Tuesday, he came to the Walden Village Board with a more detailed presentation, accompanied by Sylvie Rainaldi, a trustee of the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps. The two made a lengthy presentation and then took questions from the audience and later the village board members.

Maher said the ambulance corps currently does not offer Advanced Life Saving (ALS) Support services, only Basic Life Saving (BLS) services. If someone is having a heart attack, for example, town ambulance would have to rely on Mobile Life to provide ALS. Maher said the formation of an ambulance district would enable the local ambulance corps to provide both ALS and BLS services.

A new ambulance district would be financed by property taxes, with an annual estimated budget of $800,000. Currently, the ambulance corps is funded by billing insurance companies for transports. It also receives $150,000 from the Town of Montgomery General Fund. The town is also paying certain invoices, Maher said.
Maher said that creating a tax district for ambulances is not like creating a fire district. It would be more like a consolidated water and sewer district. Rather than being governed by a Board of Fire Commissioners, the ambulance district would be overseen by the town board along with certain town employees. The ambulance district would contract with the Ambulance Corps - currently comprised of both paid employees and volunteers - to provide the actual service.

Based on budget projections, a home assessed at $100,000 would pay $46.39 a year in ambulance taxes, while a home assessed at $200,000 would pay $92.78 annually.

“For Mayor John Ramos on Alfred Place,” Maher said. “70 bucks and change.”

Maher said the Town of Montgomery would prepare and present the budget annually, but that the village board could designate a representative to participate in the budget process. The actual budget would have to be approved by the town board by November of each year, when the town budget is approved.

Rainaldi said the ambulance corps currently has 22 active volunteers in addition to five full-time employees who receive an average of $19 per hour. There are three vehicles in the current fleet, one of which is staffed with two people per rig. The goal is to have a second rig staffed.

“We are currently understaffed and dropping calls,” Rainaldi said, adding that they have been responding to “84 or 85 percent” of all calls. “We should have one rig being 24/7 and one being 12/7.”

She said annual expenses of the corps are currently at $840,000, of which payroll accounts for about 60 percent. She said that they had to write off about $346,000 billed in 2020 from patients who were unable to pay or who weren’t covered by insurance.

“Nobody is taken to collection,” she said.

A portion of last week’s discussion centered around response time and the location of the the ambulance headquarters. The primary bay is on North Montgomery Street in Walden. EMTs on duty will stay there between calls. A second location is the food pantry building at Scott’s Corners. It is not staffed.

Rainaldi said the Walden location puts response times to other areas, like Maybrook and Kaisertown a at disadvantage.

Maher said the plan would be to build a new state-of-the-art ambulance facility on town property at 112 Bracken Road, next to town hall.

“We’re looking at about a $3 million bond,” Maher said.
Rainaldi, when questioned, said the fate of the current building would need to be resolved before the district would be created.

“You guys may eventually own that building,” Maher said to the Walden trustees, conceding that the new location could decrease Walden’s response time. “We believe a central local is a model that makes the most sense.”

In response to a question from the audience, Rainaldi said that Walden accounted for 24 percent of all calls within the past year. The remaining breakdown was: Town of Montgomery 38 percent; Maybrook 16 percent, Village of Montgomery 13 percent and mutual aid calls outside the town 8 percent. She said 62 percent of the calls did not result in transport, an important figure, since ambulances only bill for transport.

Maher said the process to create this district required each of the three villages to pass a resolution, subject to a permissive referendum, agreeing to join the district. The town board would then pass a resolution, also subject to a permissive referendum, establishing the district.

The Montgomery Town Board has scheduled a public hearing to consider the creation of an ambulance district on Wednesday, Jan 12 at 6:30 p.m. Maher said he hoped the three villages would also adopt resolutions in support of the district by then and had submitted a sample resolution for Walden trustees to consider.

“What happens if one village voted it down?” Former Walden Mayor Becky Pearson asked.

“We’re not required to have a contract,” Walden Village Manager John Revella responded.

Ambulance officials said that if a Walden resident called 911, a dispatcher would still send an ambulance, with or without a district or a contract.

Realistically, if the Village of Walden did not opt in, Maher said “we would not move forward.”

Deputy Mayor Willie Carley, who sat and listened to the Montgomery presentation, said this one was quite different.

“Obviously there’s a lot more information to digest,” Carley said. “I just wish the due diligence would have been up front.”

Carley said the trustees need to have a discussion about the different models of ambulance service and see how it best fits the Village of Walden.

“One penny or one dollar,” Carley said. “I think we owe the taxpayer some due diligence.”