PASCACK VALLEY—Following discussion at its Aug. 19 meeting, the Old Tappan Borough Council decided not to participate in a planned four-town study of joint ambulance services.
However, the mayor emphasized that they remain committed to increasing daytime coverage for the local ambulance corps.
Old Tappan’s decision leaves three neighbors—Hillsdale, River Vale, and the Township of Washington—to likely proceed with the joint ambulance study at a slightly increased cost per town.
The council discussed the joint ambulance study at its Aug. 19 meeting and voted, 5-0, not to join. Last month, Hillsdale approved participation in the study, and on Aug. 12, the townships of Washington and River Vale approved resolutions to participate in a four-town joint ambulance service feasibility study.
Since those resolutions anticipated Old Tappan’s participation, the towns will likely need to approve revised resolutions listing only the three participating towns, along with a minor cost increase.
If four towns had participated, the study cost would have been $4,350 per town. However, with three towns, the cost increased to $5,800 per town. The study, conducted by MTP Group of Sparta, will assess the feasibility of providing joint ambulance services on a paid, per diem basis for the participating towns.
Hillsdale is the only town of the three in the study with a “combined” volunteer and paid per-diem EMT ambulance service that operates during daytime hours on weekdays, covering the town from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Hillsdale’s combined service began last September to address a chronic shortage of weekday, daytime EMS volunteers. This shortage, coupled with more stringent EMT training requirements demanding 160 hours of training, has created a shortage of EMT volunteers, threatening public safety due to increased response times, officials said.
Mayor Thomas Gallagher previously told Pascack Press that a shared ambulance service arrangement with River Vale might better suit the borough than joining with towns such as Hillsdale, which generally have many more daytime calls than Old Tappan.
Gallagher told Pascack Press that “for the most part, they [the ambulance corps] have all nights and most weekends covered.”
He added that the volunteer ambulance crew is “very active in our community” and attends all concerts at Oak Park, where they also try to recruit members.
The volunteer crew also helps cover community events such as safety nights, fire prevention week, and other local activities.
Gallagher noted that any future combination of ambulance services, possibly with River Vale, would likely remain a “big budget item to consider.”
He also mentioned that some ambulance corps members had spoken to the council last year about options for recruitment and possibly supplementing coverage with a nearby hospital EMS or the county’s fleet of ambulances.
Gallagher praised the local EMS squad as fabulous and a “fabric of our community,” successfully providing emergency ambulance response from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., most weekends, and at community events for nearly a century.
He said the volunteer ambulance service addressed issues, including a lack of daytime volunteers, at a council session on Nov. 6.
Gallagher explained that the council decided not to join the study because they felt they might be “swallowed up” in a study of four towns.
He also expressed concerns about the consulting group and did not want to move toward possibly billing residents for ambulance services.
“We just felt the study really wasn’t right for Old Tappan,” Gallagher told Pascack Press. He said they opted not to participate but currently have “other options on the table,” including pursuing a possible shared or joint service with nearby River Vale.
“We want to continue the discussions with them,” he said of River Vale.
Gallagher emphasized that while the ambulance service covers nights and weekends well, they need to figure out ways to secure better daytime coverage.
He noted that Old Tappan’s police, fire, and EMS responders are on the same emergency channel with River Vale and reiterated that he is “not a fan of billing residents for EMS services,” as proposed in certain joint or shared-service agreements.
He expressed hope that Bergen County’s ambulance services would take a larger role in covering the county’s towns.