EIC'S RESEARCH:

EIC volunteers believe incorporation is the right choice for Edgemont, and these discussions are the results of our research and analysis. We encourage you to read our analyses of the issues, conduct your own research, contribute to the conversation, and make your own decision.  

Emergency Medical Services Q&A

How does Edgemont receive EMS services today, and how is it funded?

Edgemont currently receives EMS jointly from the Greenville Fire District and Greenburgh Police Department:

• Our 30+ Greenville Fire District’s career firefighters are trained as emergency medical technicians and/or paramedics. They are licensed by New York State to provide “non-transport basic life support EMS” which includes comprehensive on-scene care (called basic life support, or “BLS”), but paramedic care or transport to a hospital. In its agency participation agreement with the Greenbugh Police Department, the Greenville Fire District is described as a "Basic Life Support First Response (BLS-FR) EMS agency."

Headquartered on Central Avenue, our fire district responds to every medical call in the 2.2-square mile Edgemont community. Given its proximity to all points in Edgemont, district personnel are often the first on the scene. This service is paid for exclusively by Edgemont and would not change upon incorporation.

• The Greenburgh Police Department, located off 119 approximately 4 miles north of Edgemont, provides: 1) additional basic life support (BLS) response; and 2) ambulance transport to a hospital when necessary. These two expenses are part of the unincorporated “B” budget and are funded from revenues derived from hospital transports (i.e. ambulance fees).

  The GPD also provides: 3) paramedic (also called advanced life support, or “ALS”) service to the entire Town, including the unincorporated area and the villages. This service, including supporting equipment such as fly cars and ambulances, is paid for via the Town-wide “A” budget tax and would remain available to Edgemont if its becomes a village.

In practice, Edgemont's Greenville Fire District and the Greenburgh Police Department are simultaneously dispatched when sick or injured individuals in Edgemont require medical attention, and each agency has a role in the EMS process.

How might incorporation affect current EMS services?

As explained here, the Greenville Fire District’s first-responder, non-transport, basic life support EMS services would remain in place post-incorporation. That local department will continue to respond to all medical situations in Edgemont, regardless of severity.

Further, since Edgemont will continue to pay Town-wide property taxes post incorporation, the new village will remain eligible to receive Town-wide paramedic/fly car services just as the existing six Greenburgh villages do today.

However, for ambulance transport to continue as-is, Edgemont would need to either contract with Greenburgh for police services, secured the service privately (e.g. Empress), or provide the service directly.

How likely is a police contract between Greenburgh and Edgemont?

Because the Town of Greenburgh provides good police services to Edgemont and has significant fixed costs in this department, the EIC believes that continuing to provide the same or similar services to an incorporated Edgemont would be financially beneficial to the Town and motivate Greenburgh to negotiate mutually agreeable contract terms.

Besides contracting with Greenburgh, what other EMS options are available to the Village, and what could change?

There is no assurance that the Town will offer police and/or EMS services to the Village. If Greenburgh does not offer police and EMS services to Edgemont under terms that are acceptable to the new village, our Village Board of Trustees will have other options. We believe the best and most likely approach would be a private contract with Empress EMS.

Empress, based in Yonkers and founded in 1985, provides all aspects and levels of EMS services to over 400,000 residents in lower Westchester (about 2/3rds of this area’s population), making it the largest such provider in the County. With a staff of approximately 500 employees and a fleet of 100 emergency vehicles, Empress responds to well over 100,000 requests for ambulances every year, including mutual aid responses to New York City (for which it is a primary provider) and area municipalities.

Empress has EMS contracts with Westchester local governments including Yonkers, White Plains, New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon, Yorktown, and Pelham (Town). Further, Empress provides a variety of services to area hospitals and private care facilities.

Empress has indicated to the EIC that the Town of Pelham’s EMS contract is a useful template for a potential Village of Edgemont EMS model. In Pelham, Empress maintains a 24/7 paramedic-staffed fly car domiciled in a Pelham firehouse. Along with Pelham’s EMT firefighters, the Empress fly car/paramedic responds to all medical emergencies (about 800 calls per year) across the Town’s 12,000 population, which includes both the Village of Pelham and the Village of Pelham Manor.

Since the Empress fly car/paramedic never leaves Pelham, its response time is almost always within 3-5 minutes. If transport is needed, Empress maintains ambulances in the immediate area and guarantees an 8-minute response 90% of the time.

Given the company’s scale and number of units in lower Westchester at any given time, Empress almost never requires mutual aid (although mutual aid is part of its governmental contracts). According to Empress, it has never required mutual aid backup in the City of Yonkers.

In this scenario, EMS would be provided entirely by a combination of the Village fire department (specifically, first-responder non-transport BLS, the same services provided by the Greenville Fire District today) and Empress. Other than mutual aid, there would be no EMS involvement from the Town of Greenburgh.

In the Empress EMS scenario:

• The Edgemont Village Fire Department would continue to provide first-responder basic life support as it does today;

• Empress would provide dedicated, in-village paramedic/fly car service (5-minute response time expected); and

• Simultaneous to the dispatch of the Edgemont-based paramedic, Empress would dispatche its nearest ambulance (8-minute response time expected).

In this scenario, although Edgemont would still pay for the Town-wide paramedic program, the Town would not be directly involved in the Village of Edgemont EMS program.

In the Empress option, would the Village need a dedicated ambulance? Who provides mutual aid?

The Edgemont community does not have a dedicated ambulance today and would not need one upon incorporation under the Empress scenario (although the Board of Trustees could choose to secure a dedicated ambulance and would have the projected resources to do so). Edgemont would have a dedicated paramedic (which we do not have today) and access to the company’s substantial fleet of nearby ambulances.

As the largest EMS provider in Westchester, Empress has the scale to provide its own units as backup in the event of 2-3 simultaneous incidents. All Empress contracts include mutual aid provisions.

When would the Village determine how EMS is delivered to an incorporated Edgemont?

State law provides for a transition period. Beyond the transition date, the Town is required to continue to provide all services offered by the police department, without distinction between villages and unincorporated areas, indefinitely (unless and until the Village secures its own such services).

Why isn’t an independent ambulance company (like the volunteer ambulance companies, or “VACs,” in the Greenburgh villages) one of the listed options?

Logically, Edgemont would not establish an entirely separate, small-scale, highly duplicative EMS operation/entity when it could contract for the service from a proven, large-scale provider. Nonetheless, there is no law preventing Edgemont from establishing a VAC or sharing/contracting for EMS services with a neighboring VAC (e.g. Ardsley-Secor or Scarsdale).

Then why do the existing villages have separate ambulance companies?

The existing villages developed differently from Edgemont. They require stand-alone volunteer ambulance corps ("VACs") for local EMS because, unlike our Greenville Fire District, the village volunteer fire departments do not offer basic life support EMS services.

Can departments charge for ambulance transports?

Yes. Only volunteer fire departments, which are not themselves local governments, are prohibited by state law from charging for ambulance transports. Municipalities that provide EMS through professionally staffed fire or police departments (like the FDNY, the Town of Greenburgh, and the Village of Edgemont) are permitted to charge for ambulance transports. Edgemont Village would be entitled to ambulance transport revenue, which would be collected by a) the Town of Greenburgh, if the Town continues to provide EMS services to Edgemont via intergovernmental contract; or b) Empress, as an offset to its contact costs, if the Village secures EMS services privately.

Will EMS be a major Village of Edgemont expense?

No. Just as EMS is a relatively minor expense to the Town's "B" budget, it will also be a relatively minor expense of the village. Depending on the EMS option developed by Edgemont's Board of Trustees, our EMS expenditures will approximate 1-2% of the village’s consolidated $27 million village/fire budget.

What other options would the Village of Edgemont have for ambulance transport if we don’t contract with Greenburgh or Empress?

In the highly unlikely scenario that Edgemont does not contract with the Town or a private provider, the village’s fire service provider (already staffed by EMTs) could add staff, equipment, and space to provide the service. This would be likely be a more expensive undertaking than obtaining the service via contract, but nonetheless is affordable given projected Village of Edgemont revenues.