By Michael Ryan
CATSKILL - Loud discontent has been voiced about a vote not taken by the Greene County Legislature regarding the creation and financing of a countywide ambulance.
A letter has been sent to lawmakers, endorsed by eleven of the county’s fourteen town supervisors, asking that lawmakers do a do-over and conduct the vote (Please see related “Legislature Stuff Part 2”).
The balloting was originally slated to occur, last week, as part of a special meeting between lawmakers, town supervisors and local emergency medical service professionals.
If affirmative, which was expected, it would have climaxed nearly a year of intense discussions involving the three groups, and signaled the end of municipally owned ambulance units.
Also in the mix would be the Greene County EMS paramedic flycars that likely would have been absorbed into the county system.
While it was reliably anticipated the measure would pass, based on informal polling of the 14 lawmakers, the voting never happened.
That decision was apparently rooted in the feared longterm political fallout from moving ahead, which would have come by a slim margin.
Leading up to the September 25 scheduled vote, informal numbers showed seven lawmakers in favor and seven opposed.
However, the weighted voting system used by the legislature would have squeezed the plan through, an unwanted scenario due to the immense expense of the proposed changeover and lingering uncertainties.
“We don’t want it to look like we are forcing this down anyone’s throat,” legislature chairman Patrick Linger said.
“Even if the votes are present, If we can’t get a majority of legislators on board to pay for this, we feel it would be problematic,” Linger said.
County officials have estimated the cost of the unified system at between $12-15 million, nearly doubling what is currently paid, combined, by the county and fourteen towns.
The tradeoff is a system that provides workers with significantly better wages and benefits as well as career opportunities.
A single system also would simplify mutual aid and consolidate all elements of emergency services including the recruitment and retainment of employees, billing, purchasing and maintenance of rigs, etc.
Most importantly to many towns, it would get them out of the ambulance business with its operational and economic headaches.
County administrator Shaun Groden, in August, had been authorized to create a whole new county-level job, hiring a director to oversee the transition to what would be the largest county agency.
That person would be in the fold within the first quarter of 2026, shifting to the county system fully at the stroke of minute on January 1, 2027.
All of that was laid out in detail to lawmakers at a workshop the week prior to the September 25 meeting, and while there was still deep concern surrounding the cost, it appeared the fiscal pill would be swallowed.
But on September 22, a flurry of phone calls and emails unfolded as the resistance stiffened for reasons that may be only partially linked to the ambulance dollars, and moreso connected to pecuniary politics.
Whatever the source, on September 25, Linger cancelled the vote and a different approach was outlined by county administrator Shaun Groden.
The unified plan, while not dead in the water, would be indefinitely delayed and the county would, instead, subsidize the towns and pick up their payments toward the flycars, helping relieve their local budgets.
A stunned silence filled the meeting room before Hunter town supervisor Sean Mahoney expressed “surprise and disappointment” at the sudden turn of events, adding, “I feel like I have wasted a year of my life.”
Since then, town leaders have huddled and penned a letter to Linger and Groden, signed by a clear majority of supervisors, seeking much more definitive action on the matter.
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