From left, Chris Klingner, first lieutenant of the Rescue Squad, Dawn Marie Klingner, Rescue Squad captain, and Zachary Klingner, second lieutenant, and Chris and Marie’s son. The 100%-volunteer EMT squad operates within the Amenia Fire Company.
Story reprinted courtesy of The New Pine Plains Herald
POUGHKEEPSIE — “Over 400 times last year, an ambulance never got to the patient’s side; the patient had to get to the hospital another way,” said Dana Smith, commissioner of Dutchess County Department of Emergency Response (DCER). “What’s happening is unacceptable, and we need to do something about it.”
The critical state of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in Dutchess County is sounding alarms among local and state officials. On March 7, Smith presented an eye-opening report before the county’s Public Safety Committee that indicated the crisis is part of a broader statewide issue. He reported that across New York, only half of the 70,000 certified EMS personnel are regularly available to answer calls, and that 30% of them plan to leave the force over the next three years due to the strenuous nature of the work and insufficient compensation.
County Legislator Chris Drago, who represents District 19 (Stanford, Pine Plains, Milan, Red Hook, North East and Millerton), is one of 12 members of the Public Safety Committee. Elected to his first term in November, he campaigned on EMS reform.
“Our EMS volunteers are doing incredible work; they’re asking for help, and that is hard for them to do,” said Drago. “We owe it to them to find solutions.”
A well-documented crisis
In his March 7 presentation titled “The EMS Crisis in Dutchess County,” Smith referred to three studies that analyzed EMS operations, documented failures and proposed fixes. “All the recommendations that we’re talking about, that we’ve done to date and our plans moving forward, come from these reports,” he said.
The 2017 Dutchess County EMS Task Forces, spearheaded by then-County Executive Marc Molinaro and a panel of 28 experts, produced a data-intensive report that established five benchmarks for the system: It must be “patient-centered, consistent, reliable, affordable and sustainable.” The task force recommended the formation of the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) on EMS to aid collaboration between towns and emergency service providers. The CAC, established in 2018, works closely with Smith, who said, “These are competent, capable people advising us; they know what they’re talking about.”
The 2021 Profile of Dutchess County EMS and Options for the Future is also rich with data, like 911 calls enumerated by town, season, month, week, day and hour. The study proposed incentives like tax credits and subsidized training to attract and keep EMS workers. It also advocated a regional approach to EMS in which towns would share costs of equipment and personnel, and the county — after obtaining a state-approved county Certificate of Need— would provide extra ambulances to fill in gaps.
The New York State 2023 Evidence Based EMS Agenda for Future made more than 20 key recommendations, including declaring EMS an essential service to assure dedicated state funding; adding 10,000 certified EMS providers in New York by 2025; and implementing measurable performance metrics that would be transparent to the public and standardized across the state.
“With the results of these studies and advice from the CAC, our plans are being made for the future,” Smith told the legislators. “The county has to come up with stopgap money right now. We’re looking at how to do that.”
Smith believes that the answer to fixing the county’s troubled EMS system lies in regional management. “It will help the taxpayer without putting small ambulance companies out of work and standardize the system so every town is doing the same thing,” Smith said. “It will give us time to figure out long-term funding.”
Two months ago, Smith distributed surveys to ambulance service providers in Dutchess County, seeking input about supplementing existing EMS coverage. “This way we’ll know where to place stopgap ambulances,” he said. Survey responses, due this month, will shape a formal proposal for extra ambulance service units under the direction of DCER.
“We’ve looked at Greene, Columbia and Montgomery counties,” said Smith, who is investigating different EMS models around New York. “We’ve seen Nassau County’s EMS: They spent a lot of money and they have a very fragmented system, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Lawmakers beginning to act
With EMS stretched to its limits, elected officials, both at the county and state levels, are taking steps to help. The Public Safety Committee, DCER and Dutchess County Executive Sue Serino are working together on long-range regional EMS planning that would address each community’s needs.
Drago told the Herald, “In the short term, I’m advocating for county-staffed ambulances to be placed to supplement existing service, with one ideally placed in District 19. This will help alleviate the struggle that exists town by town and ensure we have a way of getting people to care faster.”
The 2024 Dutchess County budget includes a sales tax increase from 3.75% to 4%, in part to subsidize EMS. It has yet to be approved by the state.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation last year to make it easier for ambulance services to get paid: Reimbursement will go directly from the health insurance company to the EMS provider. Mark Browne, president and chief operating officer of Northern Dutchess Paramedics, said: “It used to be that payment went to the patient, making it more difficult for ambulance companies to get their money. It took a lot longer than it should have. Unfortunately, this change won’t even take effect until January of 2025.”
Hochul’s 2024-2025 proposed executive budget sets aside $8 million to revitalize the state’s EMS and $36 million toward improved Medicaid reimbursement for ambulance transport. It also grants Certificates of Need for county ambulance service, as recommended by the 2021 Dutchess County EMS study.
On Jan. 30, the New York state Legislature, in cooperation with EMS professionals and the New York State Association of Counties, released a package of bills called Rescue EMS, which contains seven proposals to revamp the system. “We are all aware that we need to help the emergency service [workers]” said Didi Barrett, assemblymember for New York’s 106th District, which includes parts of Dutchess and Columbia counties. “They put themselves in harm’s way every day. Finally, there’s enough critical mass in the legislature to get something done.”
Rescue EMS covers a wide variety of needs. The proposals are described by Barrett as “game changers.” One bill, if passed, would recognize EMS as an essential service, securing state and federal funding. It would also allow the creation of special tax districts to subsidize EMS services.
Barrett’s proposed legislation would allow volunteer firefighters and EMS workers to claim both state income and local property tax credits. “It will incentivize volunteer firefighter and EMS recruitment and retention,” Barrett said.
State Sen. Michelle Hinchey, who represents New York’s 41st District (which includes Northern Dutchess and Columbia counties, and portions of Ulster and Greene), is sponsoring a bill that provides Medicaid reimbursement for on-the-scene emergency care and ambulance transportation to non-hospital destinations, like urgent care centers and mental health facilities. It also would provide funding for telemedicine.
“Currently, EMS can only be reimbursed for treating Medicaid enrollees if they transport patients to a hospital ER, even if EMS has already provided the necessary care,” Hinchey told the Herald. “We cannot allow this status quo to continue.”
The remaining bills focus on funding and increasing the emergency workforce. Proposals include removing EMS from the property tax cap so towns can raise taxes more than 2% annually; increasing personal income tax credits for volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers from $200 to $800 for individuals and $400 to $1,600 for joint filers; creating a way to increase the amount of Medicaid ambulance reimbursements paid; and dispensing with tolls for emergency transport on New York thruways.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing for the Rescue EMS package to be included in the state budget, which is due April 1.
DCER supports the legislative package. “The bills address the major roadblocks faced by EMS; it’s a good start,” Smith said. “We still have a lot of asks, so we’ll just keep advocating. EMS needs recognition and support. We need to develop solutions that are patient-centered, consistent, reliable, affordable and sustainable for Dutchess County residents. It’s neighbors helping neighbors.”
This is the second article in The New Pine Plains Herald’s two-part exploration of the challenges facing local EMS systems, reprinted with permission of The New Pine Plains Herald. To see the first part in the series, visit www.newpineplainsherald.org
Residents of Silo Ridge and Amenia Fire and Ambulance volunteers posed with a big check in front of the volunteer ambulance Sunday morning, Nov. 17.
AMENIA — Jamie Vitiello presented a check for $50,000 to the Amenia Volunteer Ambulance Corps Sunday morning, Nov. 17, during the Amenia Fire Company’s pancake breakfast at the fire house.
Vitiello said he heard about the ambulance corps’ need for a life-saving device called the Lund University Cardiopulmonary Assist System device, or LUCAS device for short. The LUCAS device assists emergency responders in applying chest compressions. The mechanical device can be situated around a person’s chest in the case of cardiac arrest and used to provide compressions that are more consistent and generally safer than a human providing CPR.
“I sent out a text in the morning and then went to Town Hall,” Vitiello said. “By the time I had gotten to Town Hall we had raised $25,000. By the end of the day we had raised the whole $50,000.”
The LUCAS device cost just over $20,000 to purchase. Vitiello said the remainder of the $50,000 donation will go to the Ambulance Corps fund to support regular costs like ambulance maintenance.
The donation was made in the name of Silo Ridge residents in association with the Amenia-Wassaic Community Organization.
MILLERTON — In what Mayor Jennifer Najdek has described as “a huge bump for us,” New York State has awarded Millerton an Intermunicipal Water Infrastructure Grant (IMG) to fund various projects which continuously monitor and improve local water quality. The size of the grant is a generous $5,082,099, an amount which cannot be exceeded.
The official acceptance of the grant, which is application-based, came together fairly quickly as officials had only one week to decide. With the knowledge looming that grant requests may be bypassed or allocated to other communities without a decision being reached, Millerton leadership aligned after careful consideration at a special meeting held last week, signing off on Nov. 8. With the grant now secured, Najdek is optimistic Millerton can now move forward on pending wastewater concerns like water treatment and stormwater projects, saying “This project has great potential to happen now.”
One downside regarding the grant, however, is the impact the award will have on additional grants. As the mayor explains it, this grant differs from others in that it must be combined with other grants and the amount may eventually be reduced, contingent on the awarding of additional grants or projects running under budget.
Najdek also pointed out the downsides of future wastewater projects, citing potential impacts on the implementation of new businesses on Main Street, but it’s a hurdle to leap when — and if — the time comes. Her focus is firm on the benefits of the grant and the projects which may result from the award. She was quick to quell concerns of residents outside the district who have voiced taxation concerns connected to wastewater projects, pointing out they will not be impacted. “This is important,” said Najdek. “It’s about slow, sustainable growth … and it’ll maintain the character of the village.”
Dan Aymar-Blair
MILLERTON — Democrat Dan Aymar-Blair defeated Republican A. Gregg Pulver in the race for County Comptroller, according to unofficial results of the Dutchess County Board of Elections after a count of affidavit and absentee ballots.
As of Friday, Nov. 15, Aymar-Blair was ahead of Gregg Pulver by 850 votes. Aymar-Blair declared victory on Friday.
“I am humbled and honored by the trust Dutchess County residents have placed in me. This victory affirms that taxpayers want a watchdog who will make sure the county’s budget is working for them,” he said in a statement published on the Dutchess County Democratic Committee’s website.
Aymar-Blair, who has experience in municipal finance, currently oversees business operations at New York City’s public school’s special education program, and is serving a third term on the Beacon City Council. He is expected to assume his new post in January, completing the term of former Comptroller Robin Lois. Aymar-Blair would run for reelection in 2025.
Pulver was appointed Comptroller in November 2023 by then County Executive William F.X. O’Neill following the resignation of Lois. Prior to his appointment by O’Neill, Pulver was Chairman of the Dutchess County Legislature. Pulver, a third-generation farmer from Pine Plains, had served several two-year terms as a County legislator and also had served as a local school board member and town supervisor.
“I want to thank all those who supported our campaign over the last 10 months,” Pulver said in a statement on Monday, Nov. 18. “This was an absurdly close race and it’s clear that the work our office has done bringing true fiscal stewardship to the County was a strong message.”
The Board of Elections is scheduled to certify the 2024 elections on Nov. 30.
MILLERTON — The Town of North East discussed the next steps for the Zoning Review Committee during its board meeting on Thursday, Nov. 14.
Edith Greenwood, committee chair and vice chair of the North East Zoning Board of Appeals, joined the Town Board meeting to share what the committee has completed in the last four years.
“The review is a result of the Comprehensive Plan … which was adopted in 2019, and the logical planning progression is a visioning document of where you want your town to go,” Greenwood said. “And the next step is to incorporate those concepts, those goals in your code.”
The Zoning Review committee has spent a large portion of its time redoing the zoning for the Town of North East’s commercial district. This part of the town stretches from Route 44 to the Connecticut border and mostly consists of commercial buildings.
“We retained a consultant who has been the town planner for probably ten years and is very knowledgeable about our situation,” Greenwood said. “We grappled with where to start, and we decided that it made sense to start with commercial.”
According to Greenwood, the most significant change to the code is moving the special permitting process from the Zoning Board of Appeals to the Planning Board. This will prevent applicants from having to go back and forth between different boards.
“There are two other sections which we have had to address because of the complexity of codes and the way it overlaps,” said Greenwood, “but we have not taken a substantive view of the residential, or what we call Land Conservancy, our wetlands issue … We have not made any changes to the outer boundaries of any of the three sections we looked at. We’ve reconfigured the Boulevard District. It currently has six sections. It’s gone down to three sections.”
The committee’s plans show that an applicant requires a special permit and site plan approval, which will allow a municipality an extra level of protection.
“What we are handing over to you today does include some aspects of the residential and the land conservation, but they’re far from flush and where we needed to just pull this together and make sense of the zoning document,” Greenwood said, “There should be a part B to this process, we’re definitely more than halfway through, maybe we are even 60%, but there is more work to be done to complete this code, especially on the housing.”
“What I would really like to point out to people is that this is a committee of volunteers who have met on 90 occasions to go through the zoning of the Boulevard District,” Town Supervisor Chris Kennan said. “That’s a lot of hours of people’s personal time spent trying to make this town better.”
The board reviewed the Town of North East’s budget and announced a new negotiation with Northern Dutchess Paramedics.
Previously, the town had a five-year contract with NDP for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) alongside the towns of Dover and Amenia. The Town of North East paid NDP 2% more each year during the contract.
NDP has recently pitched a new contract with North East that would cost $646,300, increasing its budget by 71%. According to Kennan, with that budget, town residents outside of the Village of Millerton would see an increase in their tax rate by 1.16%.
“That contract ends at the end of December, so we have been negotiating with Northern Dutchess Paramedics over their proposed increase,” said Kennan, “The increase that they had proposed, we’ve written about, we’ve talked about at previous meetings, was really overwhelmingly intolerable for the town. It was a huge, huge increase.”
North East also looked into a different contractor, Empress, who services the western and southwestern parts of the county. However, their proposal was “wildly” more expensive than NDP’s first offer. Now, the town has met with NDP and reached a new contract price of $511,558, a reduction of $134,742.
“The reasons for their increase are that they were locked into a contract for five years, which each year had a 2% increase and going through the period of COVID,” Kennan said. “Everyone knows we have seen inflation in all kinds of different items, in labor costs, particularly in materials, especially medical costs, the cost of an ambulance itself has gone up dramatically, so they were basically struggling to deliver the service to the town for these past few years.”
The town board will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 5:30 p.m. to finalize and adopt the revised budget.
Pro-housing pledge
The Town Board members signed a pro-housing pledge, stating that they were aware of the lack of housing for New York state residents and that income levels negatively affected future economic viability.
“The housing crisis has negative effects at regional and local levels, and whereas we believe that every community must do their parts to contribute to housing growth and benefit from positive impacts a healthy housing market brings to the community,” Town Clerk Tilly Strauss said, reading from the pledge.
Supervisor Kennan said he has met with the management of the Millerton Gun Club to discuss the town’s concerns and to limit the club’s shooting hours.
“I have met with the management of the gun club on multiple occasions and expressed our desire to have them think about not having shooting on Sunday and not having shooting permitted after five o’clock or sundown during the day to give people the opportunity to enjoy their evenings without gunfire,” Kennan said.
The town has received a speed reduction request on Route 22 from Chuck Road to the Village of Millerton line. The request asks the town to reduce the speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour.
“Chuck Road to the Village of Millerton has seen increased traffic and dangerous intersections,” Strauss said. “The highway superintendent and the town board have determined that the current speed limit of 55 miles per hour on this portion of Route 22 is too high, resulting in hazardous and dangerous conditions.”
