Town of Mount Hope Special Board Meeting 6/11/2024
OFFICIALS PRESENT: Police Chief Mike Maresca
GREENVILLE AMBULANCE MEMBERS: Christian VanBuren, Todd VanBuren, Tyler VanBuren, Geoffrey Stafford & Andrew LaMarca.
Town Supervisor Rickard opened the meeting following the Pledge of Allegiance at 7:30pm. Legal notice is on the table.
Supervisor Rickard:
The purpose of this meeting is for the board members and the members of Greenville to be able to sit in the same room with a quorum to try to drill down on the idea of contracting with them for ambulance service. We will have a public participation – the public can make comments. We are not answering questions. If you do have a question, we will write it down then if you come to our meeting next week, we will answer it. If it’s a quick, easy answer for either side, we can probably do that. If you speak during public comment, please state your name. The Greenville members introduced themselves at this point. Supervisor Rickard thanked them for coming. Everybody knows we have an issue with the ambulance service, Empress. They have taken over for Mobile Life. That’s raised some questions about their ability to respond. They did supply their statistics. They claim they had 77 dispatches to the T/O Mount Hope since January 1st and they responded to 59 of them. And, of that #, 33 people were transported. 33 transports of 59 responses. This is a big issue. To make an ambulance a mandatory service was not voted on in the legislature. He spoke to Senator Skoufis. He said it was not gonna happen. In Mount Hope, it’s been since 2006 since we have had an ambulance. Greenville Ambulance had reached out to us and offered to contract with us. There’re a few options out there: we could create a special district which will then separate us from the town taxes. (Similar to Hidden Valley sewer); the town board members would be commissioners OR there’s legislation pending that we could have a joint district. He doesn’t think that passed as of yet either. A few other municipalities are looking to pursue that. In full disclosure, Middletown had reached out and they want to sit down and talk about a joint district if that legislation does pass. T/O Wawayanda has decided to start their own town ambulance service. They are also in the process of starting a townwide ambulance district to pay for it.
Todd VanBuren: I’d be curious what the county numbers are because of Empress saying they only came to Mount Hope for 79 dispatches. We personally have been in Mount Hope 26/27 times. Those #’s don’t seem to jive. I reached out to the county. I’m waiting for them to give me the #’s for the past 3 years to compare. Supervisor provided some stats with the time of day for dispatching.
Geoff Stafford: (President of Greenville Ambulance for 41 years) We’ve been in business for 50 years in the T/O Greenville. In 1998 we acquired a piece of property in the town for almost nothing. We built a building with no money. People came through. We built a beautiful building – it has everything. Over the years we’ve developed into answering more calls. We have a new ambulance coming in November. I am also on the town board in Greenville.
The ambulance works very well with the town board. The difference not only in the number of calls but having a local ambulance – we attend local events. Even though we only function as EMT’s we do have paramedics. Our goal is to provide 24/7 service. We can’t do it as one town. It’s not financially feasible. We already have the infrastructure. We bill. He explained collections on billing & certificate of need. They are a not-for-profit. He thinks their response time would be better than Empress.
Andrew LaMarca: Right now, we cover whatever needs to be covered here with mutual aid. He explained (CON) Certificate of need. If, as a municipality, you decide you want to have control of an ambulance, you can put in for a CON. He discussed municipal CON. (inaudible) He explained that right now they have paid staff for 12 hours/day. Just for staffing, it costs $400,000.00.
Supervisor Rickard: 12 hours/day, 7 days/week? LaMarca: correct. All nights are covered by volunteers.
Councilmember Carey asked if his recommendation is to stay with mutual aid for now. LaMarca: yes, it’s the safest thing.
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Supervisor Rickard asked about the 42% reimbursement is of the cost? LaMarca: yes. He further explained the Medicare v. Medicaid reimbursements. He added that the state doesn’t allow ‘direct billing’.
Councilmember Carey asked if someone is uninsured, how is that handles billing-wise? Are they sent to collections?
LaMarca: that’s usually handled by who provided the service. We can send to collections. We usually send 3 notices.
T. VanBuren: we do not send them to collections, if they don’t have insurance. It’s just a wash. We bill 3X, if they don’t pay, it’s dropped. The only people that are sent to collections are those that get a check and don’t forward to us or co-pays. Carey: if we were to stay mutual aid, are you able to bill? LaMarca: correct.
C. VanBuren: the town has the right to dictate who their mutual aid will be.
Councilmember Jennings: what’s your average response time to Mount Hope? T. VanBuren: just under 20 minutes.
Supervisor Rickard asked how much the Town of Greenville subsidize you?
Stafford: $150,000.00. We’re looking into doing a special district because that’s in the town budget. That can affect your 2%. He explained the petition process from the residents that they would like an ambulance service.
Supervisor Rickard asked what’s the bottom-line number you would need from the town to make it financially?
T. VanBuren: rough figuring, mirroring what Greenville is, I anticipated roughly $130,000 in income from billing & $70,000 is the bare minimum. That would be one ambulance for 24/7 coverage. Stafford: that’s only salaries. It doesn’t include fuel, heat, building maintenance etc. We try to put $ away in a reserve fund for a new ambulance. The exact figure last year was for salaries $209,000.00. Starting EMT’s is $16/hour depending on experience could be as high as $22/hour.
LaMarca: for a special district, you probably have to start reverse engineering & find out what you want: a truck here, 24 hours per day – you have to figure out what the top # is going to be and will your tax district be able to afford that.
Supervisor: if we want to do this, what do we have to pay you to do this, to do it right? TO have your ambulance respond to calls here? LaMarca: if it stays in mutual aid, it’s not really an obligation but if you were going to contribute, I think we’d have to work that out.
Stafford: I think a special district is the way to go.
Rickard: we’re trying to come up with a long-term plan.
**discussion on special district
Councilmember Carey: are you seeking to expand with other municipalities like you are with us? Stafford: no.
Brian Carey: I don’t think that a lot of people from Mount Hope and Otisville know that Empress contracted with Middletown and is no longer coming out here in response like they used to. Until someone has an emergency call and they realize how long it’s gonna take (Otisville fire responds. They have EMT’s & we also have the police department during the day.)
Supervisor: I agree and I think part of the challenge is, no matter who it is – you don’t care what the cost is. Until you get to that point, you’re probably not thinking about it.
Mary Maurizzio asked who these men are as she came in late. T. VanBuren introduced everyone. Maurizzio: what’s the matter with Otisville and their EMT’s that respond? Supervisor: they can’t transport you is the biggest thing. C. VanBuren explained the difference.
Melissa Massari: I am not representing OFD even though I am a member however, as a community member, my concern would be – we have a lot of good quality EMT’s in our department. We do respond very quickly. Are we paying this money to get the same response time that we currently don’t pay for in mutual aid? What is the benefit to us paying this money? You’re saying you’re not ready to have an ambulance stationed in our town. SO, if you’re coming from Westtown, getting to Greenville, getting in your ambulance and coming here, it’s still that same time that we’re waiting. T. VanBuren explained how an emergency call is handled.
Lisa Walsh is not sure how ambulance services currently work. I was hoping for a quick recap and then what’s gonna change? T. VanBuren: right now, Empress covers the T/O Mount Hope. There’re roughly 450-460 calls in MH every year. This year alone, Greenville has covered 27/28 of those calls& we are not even ½ way through the year. We are not the only one covering. We cover 5-10% of Empress’ calls because they can’t. Supervisor: if this was to come to fruition, Greenville would have one ambulance, 2 people, 24/7 to a call here.
Maureen Coppola verified that a call going to 911 from Mount Hope would automatically go to Empress for coverage. Someone in the audience answered the question.
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Lance Davoren: if the town decides to go with an ambulance (Greenville), then Empress would be 2nd? T. VanBuren: our mutual aid plan is set up as next closest.
Gladys Terrell: where does our EMT’s stand, if they don’t respond? Will Otisville respond every time before these guys get there? Supervisor: if you live in the Otisville fire protection or Otisville village then the Otisville EMT’s will respond. T. VanBuren explains how calls are determined ALS/BLS.
Supervisor Rickard: we have options: one would be to create an ambulance district which would be the town boundaries and taxed separately than the town tax OR the town can do it without creating a special district and then it would just be in your taxes. DISCUSSION ensued.
Stafford: if you still need us to come to the fair or any function in the town – we will still come for that even though we don’t have a certificate for it.
Councilmember Furman thanked them for coming.
Councilmember Carey thanked them for coming.
Councilmember Davis knows they have EMT’s and have no paramedics. She asked if they were planning to have them.
T. VanBuren: ultimate goal is down the road – yes.
Supervisor Rickard thanked them for coming. He knows the community needs to be educated on this. He agrees that people do not understand and know how this whole thing works.
MOTION TO ADJOURN:
MOTION offered Councilmember Furman 2nd Councilmember Jennings to adjourn at 8:40PM. All in favor: Davis, Carey, Rickard, Jennings, Furman; carried.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen A. Myers, Town Clerk
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