The Town of Queensbury and two of its EMS service companies have come to an agreement on pay and service. The town will set a public hearing on the contracts as during the board meeting Monday March 7. The contracts run from April 1 through the end of the year.
Under the resolutions, the town will pay $976,494 to West Glens Falls Emergency Squad, Inc. and $563,766 to Bay Ridge Rescue Squad, Inc. for emergency services. The funds will pay operating expenses, debt servicing and staff. North Queensbury EMS is still negotiating with the town.
The salaries of the staff has been an issue, and Supervisor John Strough said in an interview in late January that this year the town would focus on boosting salaries for the life-support staff.
In 2020, the town engaged with CGR of Rochester to look at the health of the EMS systems in Queensbury. CGR found, among other issues: “The paid staff receive a low wage compared to the public employees in the Town of Queensbury, are not allowed to receive paid time off under the town contracts, and barely meet the standard of a living wage for most household situations.”
“The immediate problem is paid staff,” Strough said during the January 2022 interview, adding that people with Advanced Life Support Training were making only $20 per hour. “It makes sense, and I think it will to the public, that we need to pay these people more to attract and retain them.”
Staff with Basic Life Support training will be paid $20 per hour. Those with Advanced Life Support, $22.50 an hour. Advanced EMT certificate holders will be paid $25 per hour under the agreement. Full-time staff, defined as 36 hours per week or more, will earn five days of paid sick time and five days of leave following 6 months of full-time service.
The contract requires two crews per day to operate out of each station.
The budget for paid staff at West Glens Falls is $529,175; for Bay Ridge it is $385,796.
Bay Ridge will get a one-time payment of $10,000 for a new station floor.
Most of the agreements remain the same as they were before. The companies may not use their town funds on fundraising efforts, on payment for personal vehicle use. They must get approval for capital expenses of $50,000 or more.
West Glens Falls and Bay Ridge are the two largest companies and cover the majority of the town, though all three squads may cross borders to help one another or to help in a nearby, out-of-town emergency.
Correction: the town was not planning to discuss the merits of the contracts as originally reported but to set a public hearing on them. It is corrected in the story, and we apologize for the error.