Boston EMS budget includes new ambulances, staff

The expansion would reduce sluggish response times, lower expensive overtime costs and refer fewer calls to private ambulance companies

April 30, 2016 09:39 AM

Boston Herald

BOSTON — The city’s EMS agency is being beefed up with 20 new recruits and 10 new ambulances in the coming year to keep pace with surging medical calls in a budget boost that is aimed at lowering response times that now average 7 minutes.

The proposed 5.7 percent budget hike for Boston EMS comes as Mayor Martin J. Walsh has set spending limits on other public safety departments. He has called for police and fire to slash overtime costs as well as pushed the Boston Public Health Commission to tighten its spending in the $2.97 billion city spending plan for the coming year.

The $2.87 million jump in the EMS budget is intended to meet “heightened demand” and make Boston the “healthiest city in the nation,” city officials said.

Under Walsh’s budget, the expansion would reduce sluggish response times, lower expensive overtime costs and refer fewer calls to private ambulance companies.

“The added personnel and ambulances will enhance our capacity to respond to calls,” health commission spokeswoman Marjorie Nesin said.

The city’s population has steadily climbed over the past few years by more than 4 percent from 620,451 people in 2010 to 645,966 in 2013, according to the U.S. Census.

This comes as emergency calls in the city climbed by more than 7 percent between 2014 and 2015, according to the latest city data.

The downtown and Dorchester neighborhoods had the biggest demands in 2015, with about 30,000 calls each. Boston EMS responded more than 120,000 times last year, records show.

Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a watchdog group, called the budget infusion a needed boost.

“The city wants to beef up EMS service so there is a better response time,” Tyler said. “It is a matter of trying to make sure Boston is better covered in terms of where ambulances are located in the city and having more resources.”

While Tyler said he was surprised to see the budget jump, he said, “apparently it is meeting a need and the city has resources to do that. I think that is good.”

The new EMTs would join the ranks of 351 full-time employees and allow the city to staff two more frontline ambulances, officials said.

The new rigs, which will be Braun Ambulances, or Ford F450s, would cost $199,551 each.