By Alex Portal
The Post-Star, Glens Falls
LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y. – Amid a tense contract discussion, the town of Lake Luzerne signaled its willingness to raise the rate structure charged by the Rockwell Falls Ambulance Service. The changes had previously been approved by the town of Hadley, the other municipality that contracts with the ambulance company.
“Basically, what we’re saying at this point is: things have gotten so outrageously expensive for us, that we’ve got to come up with a way to get more income or the towns are going to have to raise more taxes,” Barry Petteys, treasurer for the Rockwell Falls Ambulance Service frankly explained during the Dec. 16 Lake Luzerne board meeting.
| MORE: Courage in chaos
Petteys said that when the ambulance service responds to a call, it generates a report outlining the actions, services, and materials used or taken during that call. Each item is assigned a monetary value, then the report is used to generate a bill, which is first sent to the individual’s insurance provider. Whatever is not covered by insurance is then billed directly to the individual. For those who pay taxes in either town, the remaining service bill is waived, but for anyone outside the towns who utilizes the ambulance service, payment is expected. The money collected from services is placed into a Firemen’s Association of the State of New York Credit Union account jointly held by the town of Hadley, the town of Lake Luzerne and the ambulance company, and is used to supplement each of the towns’ EMS budget. However, Petteys explained that the billing software has no way of detecting which individuals are Hadley /Luzerne taxpayers, so bills are sent out indiscriminately.
“Most people wind up paying that [bill], they don’t want that collection hanging over them, they want to do the right thing, they want to pay because they’re being told they owe the bill,” he said.
If the bill is not paid, Petteys said the money is written off because the cost to hire a collection agency would be greater than the money collected.
“You’re opening up a can of worms that’s never going to pay off. That’s why we don’t do collection,” Petteys told the board.
The Rockwell Falls Ambulance Service is seeking authorization from the two towns to raise the cost per service item in order to help recover its expenses per call.
Additionally, Petteys said that there are new categories of services issued by the New York State Department of Health for which the ambulance service can charge.
“They’re allowing us to go down even more avenues than before to get income. So, we’re trying to set these rates so that we can basically get you guys, the two towns, more money so that you don’t have to increase the taxes,” Petteys explained.
The contract with the new rates has already been approved and signed by the town of Hadley, but was stymied in Lake Luzerne over uncertainty in the language used to describe what entity is responsible for recovering the fees. It was not clear whether the discrepancies would be resolved between all three parties by the Dec. 31 deadline; however, the Lake Luzerne town board felt confident that it could come to a decision by its year-end meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. on Dec. 29.
© 2025 The Post Star (Glens Falls, N.Y.).
Visit www.poststar.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
