Medical issue splits council; free ambulance service to three towns during talks
By Douglass Dowty Staff writer
The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
Copyright 2007 Post-Standard
All Rights Reserved
Oswego will continue providing ambulance service to the surrounding towns at no expense to the towns while longer-term deals are being worked out, the Oswego Common Council decided in a 4-3 vote Monday.
Members of the majority said the city needed until April to negotiate with the towns of Oswego, Scriba and Minetto, which haven’t paid for ambulance service since the last contract expired in April.
“I don’t think right now is the time to draw a line in the sand with our neighbors,” said Tim Rice, D-6th Ward.
“I think the towns are in a position to come up with some better numbers” if negotiations continue, said Council President Connie Cosemento, D-1st Ward.
But two councilors strongly opposed the extension.
“It’s a joke,” said Councilor Ed Harrington, D-3rd Ward. “It’s a slap in the face of every taxpayer in the city of Oswego.”
Councilor Dick Atkins, D-7th Ward, said he wanted to see each town pay a prorated amount of $2,500 to continue service until April. Under a previous contract, each town paid $10,000 per year.
Atkins also said he was wary of providing services that compete with the private sector, such as the locally owned Oswego County Ambulance in Fulton.
Councilor Gerald Brown, D-4th Ward, who started on the council in November, said he agreed with Atkins and Harrington that the towns shouldn’t get the service free.
Mayor Randy Bateman, who appointed Brown to replace him on the council, has pointed out that out-of-city residents pay $100 more per ambulance call than city residents pay.
Patients in Scriba, Minetto and Oswego town pay $600 for advanced life support or $450 for basic life support, in addition to $7 per mile of ambulance service. Since each town patient pays an extra $100 per call, Bateman said, the city can expect to make about $30,000 a year from calls to the towns, which equals the same amount the three towns paid collectively when each paid $10,000 per year.
“Based on our budget, I think $10,000 (per town) is fair,” Bateman said last week.
Cosemento also pointed out that the towns are already in the middle of their budget years, making it difficult for them to pay the city fees.
Harrington guessed that the ambulance business costs the city $1 million a year and said the larger towns would have to pay more than $200,000 each per year to adequately offset costs of the service.