Town board uses half of sum offered for police contract to help rescue squad hire drivers

by Dan McClelland

In an effort to give town residents faster emergency response from the Tupper Lake Emergency and Ambulance Squad, the town board at a special meeting Friday, January 27 amended its budget to provide $25,000 more to the squad in 2023- specifically to pay for additional personnel.

The rescue squad began over 60 years ago as an almost all volunteer force. Over the years some of the positions- particularly the senior medical ones- became paid ones.

In recent years, because of a decline in volunteers, some of the ambulance drivers and emergency medical technicians became paid positions too. The squad officers recently hired a part-time paid driver to work Friday and Saturday nights because it was difficult to find volunteers to staff those shifts.. Some of the new town money will help fund that position.

The money will come from the $50,000 pool town leaders last year, under acting Supervisor Mary Fontana, were going to pay the village for the emergency response to the township of the village police.

The village leaders were asking the annual town police contract sum be upped to $60,000 to more accurately reflect, what they thought, represented a fairer share of the PD’s service to the town. Village officials had calculated from recent year’s statistics, the 5% of the department’s work was responding to emergency calls in the town. The village police budget is about $1.3 million.

In negotiations between Trustees David Maroun and Jason McClain and Ms. Fontana and Councilman John Gillis, a town offer of $50,000 was presented, with $15,000 of it contingent on the police department returning this year to full-time service.

In recent years the town has budgeted $29,000 for the service. Up to five years ago, there was no funds exchanged and no contract, and police officers just routinely rolled to the town neighborhoods when there were calls for help from town residents.

Village officers carry defibrillators and other life-savings equipment in the trunks of their patrol cars, and are often first on the scene of a call for help in the town. They have saved lives in the past.

Village officials rejected that offer as too low and the longstanding contract for the emergency services of the village police between the town and village governments expired on December 31.

Councilwoman Mary Fontana began the discussion of the new funding Friday.

“After the village board chose not to continue with the police contract, I reached out to Mark Picerno of the rescue squad to see what their needs were.

“We set up a meeting and met with them on Martin Luther King day and went through their list of immediate needs. -And what voids we could maybe help fill with some funds from the town.”

Their main concern was lack of volunteer drivers and the need to hire paid ones, she continued.

“We unofficially committed that day to $25,000- based on their estimates of need for drivers.”

She said the “fine details” of the arrangement still need to be worked out with the squad’s treasurer, Kelly Fleury.

Supervisor Rick Dattola said the squad officials liked the idea of the town budgeting a line item of $25,000 per year and so when they hire a new driver, the town could then release the money to them to help pay that person.

There is “some flexibility” with the new budget line, including the provision that the cost of training new members could also come from that town money, Ms. Fontana added. She said it is commonplace for drivers to eventually take the medical training to become emergency medical technicians, and their training could come from the town appropriation each year.

“The $25,000 also diminishes the line item of $50,000” the board had set aside to pay the village in any revised police contract. “If the village does come back to us with a contract offer, there’s only $25,000 left to negotiate with,” she told her colleagues.

Councilman John Gillis asked if the town budget still contains a sum of $10,000 the town board has given the rescue squad in recent years to help with their purchase of medical equipment and he was told by the supervisor that money “stays in the budget.”

A past town board established that funding, but it requires that squad officials each fall come to the board to ask for it and explain exactly what type of equipment it will be used to buy.

“It is really good because as the squad leaders said: ‘it solves the problem of response time’ when volunteer drivers aren’t available, Mr. Dattola told his board members.

“If they can get a couple more paid drivers, their response time to calls is going to be that much quicker,” he added. “It will be an ongoing thing. It’s from the $50,000 we put in the new budget for the police contract. Now $25,000 of it will go to pay some of the drivers!”

The board passed a motion to set up the new budget line unanimously.

Councilman John Gillis held out the possibility that more financial support could come from the town in years ahead to make sure the rescue squad has enough drivers and EMTs to be the first responders to every emergency call to the town.

It was noted in the discussion that afternoon, that is was better to have a trained EMT at the scene of an emergency than a police officer. The board action was designed to make that happen more often.