The Voorheesville Area Ambulance, formerly a volunteer-run organization, is now hiring a third party to pay EMS workers as a result of declining volunteerism.
E5 Support Services in Queesnbury has been contracted to hire and train eight new employees. Five have already been hired.
According to federal and state law, an organization cannot hire people who volunteer for them. By going through a third party, E5, the Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service can get around this clause.
Daytime hours have been difficult for Voorheesville Area Ambulance volunteers to fill and volunteers have been working long hours as a result. Voorheesville Area Ambulance Captain Mitch Donovan hopes that hiring EMS workers for daytime hours will help volunteers “go back to their regular lives,” and, “have personal lives as they should.”
Though part of Voorheesville Area Ambulance’s funding comes from the Town of New Scotland, the town board was surprised to learn at the Wednesday, July 15, meeting that the service was now paying EMS workers.
About 39 to 61 percent of Voorheesville Area Ambulance’s funding comes from Town of New Scotland. According to Captain of Voorheesville Area Rescue Services, Mitch Donovan, that’s about $900,000 annually.
Voorheesville Area Ambulance said it is using reserved funds that had been saved for a new ambulance vehicle to pay for the new employees. The new ambulance would have cost around $170,000. Donovan said their current vehicles are working very well, however, and thought that staying at 24-hour service was more important.
Though one might fear that paying EMS workers now could lead to further decline in volunteerism or the end of EMS workers altogether, Donovan said that this would occur in the far future. He also said hiring EMS workers now is a solution that the Voorheesville Area Ambulance needs.
The Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service had previously asked the Town Board to help pay for daytime EMS workers in 2012, but the town instead chose to partner with the Albany County Sheriff’s Department.
Albany County Sheriffs now operate a vehicle out of the Voorheesville Area Ambulance station. They also respond to daytime calls in Berne and Bethlehem, as well as in New Scotland. According to Donovan, the decision to use the Albany County Sheriffs Department was made without consulting the Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service, and the two organizations have had strained communication since that time.
When asked how paying former formerly volunteer positions would effect their budget, Donovan said the change will obviously cause a huge budget shift, but it may save money down the line, as the town is now paying for two EMS services in the same area, Albany County Sheriffs and Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service.
Though Donovan did not discuss the shift to payed staffing with the town board until after he had already contracted E5 to hire and train the employees, he said that he did have some discussions with village of Voorheesville personal, and he will discuss more at an upcoming press conference that the mayor is invited to attend.
The Voorheesville Area Ambulance is not owned by the Town of New Scotland like a fire house or police station is. Instead, EMS services are contracted annually, and other volunteer organizations could ask to be considered to cover their area.
“The town has option to replace us with another service. That’s up to the people,” said Donovan.
Three EMS organizations exist in the Town of New Scotland. The Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service responds to calls that come from one area of the town, and the West Turnpike Rescue Squad and Onesquethaw stations receive calls from other areas.
The Voorheesville Area Ambulance Service receives 200 to 250 calls annually.
The station currently has 11 volunteers, with one person having recently left the service because of the intense commitment schedules of the force that have come with decreased volunteerism. That number includes three individuals who recently offered their volunteer services after VAAS had not seen a new volunteer in a year and half.
Most of the workers are now in their retirement years. Some of these volunteers have been with the Voorheesville Area Ambulance since it was first formed in 1952. Those individuals said they would hate to see their life’s work fall apart or their organization replaced by an organization that wasn’t local.
“Not only are we creating jobs locally but we are retaining local volunteers,” said Doug Wildermuth of E5 Support Services.
The company began in 2010 and has worked with other local EMS services including In Johnsonville in Rensselaer County. The organization had three volunteers. After E5 staffed them for eight months, the three volunteers volunteered from EMS class and E5 left. Wildermuth said this situation is the ideal for Voorheesville.
“We follow their operating procedures, we all wear one shirt – one symbol, so you don’t know who is being payed and who is volunteer,” said Wildermuth.
Two of the five new employees are from the Town of New Scotland. Voorheesville Area Emergency Services does not require that workers be residents of the Town of New Scotland. The company plans to hire more individuals in the coming months.
With jobs now taking up more hours of the day and most families having both parents out of the household and working, this decline in EMS workers is an epidemic seen across the country. It is a costly problem that is soon to be solved with town monies.
“We will remain a local resource that is part of this community,” said Donovan. “This brings us to the future”
