The East Rochester Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been in existence since 1938. We were incorporated as a New York membership corporation in 1949.
Up until about four or five years ago, the Corps had a contract with the Village of East Rochester to provide EMS and ambulance services to the Village. The Village discontinued the yearly contract and we were told that it was unnecessary and / or improper.
We operate out of a forty year old temporary building owned by the Village. The Village allocates, in its general budget, a sum of money from which the Village pays operating expenses for the Corps. That includes building utilities and maintenance, ownership and operating expenses for two ambulances, and supplies used in our operations such as bandages and splints.
In 2005, at the request of the Village administration, the Corps undertook the effort and expense to begin billing our patients for services. The reason given us for this pressure from the Village was that certain senior citizens were being billed by ALS providers and Medicare was not paying that bill. Medicare will not pay billings for paramedic services if the transporting agency does not bill for basic level services. While we had no figures on how many people this affected, we were pressured into beginning billing.
In March 2007, the Village administrator, Tony Argento, and the Mayor, Dave Bonacci, approached our leadership with a demand. Account for the money that we had received by billing and turn any balance over to the Village. The implied threat was that the Village would cease its support of the Corps, and it was openly discussed that a commercial organization could be contracted to perform the same services. The Corps surrendered about $105,000, and since that time we have continued to turn over billing moneys. The latest balance is about $160,000. From that sum the Village has paid certain expenses for the Corps but the unused balance has continued to increase. I cannot find this sum set aside in the published budget for the Corps’s use and I believe it is included in general revenues and is being used by the Village as a new revenue stream.
The Village’s 2006-2007 Budget provides for the sum of $75,221. for the Corps, 1.25% of the total budget. This breaks down to $45,000 for general expenses, $21,573 in debt service [the replacement for a 14 year old ambulance three years ago] and the sum of $8,648 for Worker’s Compensation. The Corps costs the average taxpayer in the Village less than $15 a year.
Since March, the Corps has had to retain attorneys in an effort to obtain a contract from the Village. That contract has not been finalized.
The Corps is alerted roughly 800 times per year. We have an average of 25 people running duty. As so many other Corps have found, certain times of the workday or overnight typically do not have a crew signed on. The Corps is part of a county-wide mutual aid agreement that provides that other agencies, including commercial ones, can be summoned to calls in East Rochester if we are unable to respond. By participating in this plan, the Corps ensures that a call to 911 for an ambulance will always have a response. 100% of our calls are responded to by our Corps or another agency.
Of the 800 calls yearly, about half do not require us to transport the patient to the hospital. We do not bill for calls where we do not transport.
Each of our volunteers run 12 plus hours a month. Many run 20 plus. We provide over 6,000 unpaid hours of service to the community each year. This amount does not include training hours. Training to the Basic level of EMT is over 130 hours of work, and that NYS certification must be renewed every three years with a 60 plus hour set of courses and classes. In addition, from the Corps level on up, there are various mandated yearly training courses that add up to about 20 additional hours per member. All of this is at no cost to the taxpayers of East Rochester.
We also offer CPR and First Aid courses to the school district and the public, operate blood pressure clinics and provide other services at little or no cost.
The Village administration clearly knows what it would cost to pay to provide ambulance coverage for the Village. Our Police Department is budgeted at over $1 million for the year, to put two police officers on the street 24/7. This is approximately what it would cost to do the same for the ambulance. The Civil Service rate for a Basic level EMT is over $18 an hour.
Nearly all of the fire departments in the county provide First Responder services for the ambulance agency covering their area. That means that when certain call criteria are met, the fire department is also alerted to an ambulance call. Very often this means that a fire truck will arrive at an ambulance call before the ambulance, and the firefighters will be providing basic EMS care until the ambulance arrives.
The East Rochester Fire Department does not respond to ambulance calls. Obviously this leaves a gap in emergency services that other localities have. The Fire Department in the 2006-2007 Village budget received $407,000, costing the average taxpayer just over $78 a year.
Several conversations between Corps Officers and the Mayor or the Village Administrator have been inconclusive in resolving a host of problems created by the various actions by the Village over the last several years. As an independent corporation, how can we be a department of the Village as the Administrator maintains? Under what authority did the Village seize money from the Corps that was not the Village’s by contract? Has the Village Board voted for appropriate resolutions and authorizing these actions taken by the Village Administrator and the Mayor?
The voters and taxpayers of East Rochester should ask themselves if they are being well served by the current administration. The Mayor and Village Administrator have been highly critical of a group of volunteers who give over 6,000 hours a year to the Village at an average cost per household of $14.41. The Corps has provided for contingencies and arranged for coverage from other agencies in time of need. The Corps has operated without the assistance of the Fire Department, which the neighboring ambulance corps of Pittsford, Perinton and Penfield all enjoy.
The Village of East Rochester enjoys first rate ambulance service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at a minimal cost to the taxpayers. The Village administration, the Mayor, Administrator and the Board would find it impossible to replace the Ambulance Corps at the current cost to the taxpayers. Indeed, the replacement cost could well amount to more than ten times the current cost.
No one likes to be strong-armed by the government. Right now the East Rochester Volunteer Ambulance Corps is being strong-armed by the Village. Pretty soon, it may be the taxpayers of the Village that get strong-armed if the current administration continues its present course.
