A local EMS union is blasting the Schenectady County legislature for pursuing a deal with a non-union ambulance provider.
Schenectady County Legislators passed a resolution Tuesday to authorize the County Manager to enter into a Mutual Aid Ambulance agreement with Rotterdam Emergency Medical Services.
The agreement seeks to establish a countywide paramedic-level ambulance staffed by one paramedic and one EMT responsible for responding to mutual aid requests.
That’s when an EMS institution calls for aid from neighboring departments.
Municipalities in the county work off a list of neighboring departments. If one department is unavailable, they move down the list until an ambulance team is found.
Anthony Jasenski chairs the County’s EMS and Firefighting Committee and sponsored the legislation. The District 4 Democrat says a dedicated unit is needed to address rising levels of mutual aid requests in Schenectady County.
“So, we know our system works well when Duanesburg can stay in Duanesburg and Rotterdam can stay in Rotterdam but whenever there is a gap, for whatever reason, stuck at the hospital, already on a call, the system starts to fall like dominoes,” he said.
Jasenski says the county could have created its own EMS system but decided against it.
“It came to us that maybe just by reallocating existing resources which are available in Rotterdam with the extra ambulances they have that they don’t staff routinely, we could do it in a timely fashion, eliminate the need for mutual aid, so that Duanesburg could cover Duanesburg, Mohawk could cover the city, it just made a lot of sense,” he said.
Soon after the legislature voted to pass the resolution, the United Professional and Services Employees Union Local 1222 blasted the county’s decision to use non-union workers.
In a statement Wednesday, Daniel Schuttig of UPSEU said the union is “deeply troubled” by the move and urged the county to reconsider. Rotterdam Emergency Medical Services and Schuttig did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At the legislature meeting, EMS Coordinator Katie Sims provided a presentation on ambulance call statistics for the county.
According to the presentation, the number of mutual aid calls in the county has steadily risen since 2022. In 2024, it was about four a day.
The highest volume of calls for EMS services was between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. The resolution’s dedicated unit would operate during those hours.
Rotterdam Emergency Medical Services had the highest rate of mutual aid requests in the county at 8 percent while also supplying mutual aid 209 times, again the highest in the county.
The committee says the proposal will help reduce the need for mutual aid services.
“The goal of this proposal is to reduce wait times for the requests for an ambulance by sharing the burden on limited resources and thereby reducing the need for further mutual aid both within and outside of the county,” she said.
Now, the county must receive a Certificate of Need from the State Department of Health to operate an EMS service and finalize a contract agreement with Rotterdam Emergency Medical Services.
Jasenski says he expects the state will grant the certificate.
“In the history of New York State, they have never ever refused a municipality, we don’t expect to be the first because we can demonstrate that there is a need,” he said.
The goal is to have the new agreement in place by July 1st.
