N.Y. officials approve ambulance district, eye improved response times

The Town of Ulster conditionally approved the creation of a townwide ambulance district and draft budget, citing improved response times under its Empress EMS contract

July 04, 2025 08:00 AM

Empress EMS ambulances outside of a hospital emergency department.

By William J. Kemble
Daily Freeman

TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. — The Town Board conditionally approved establishing a townwide ambulance district and a draft budget to go with it.

The board’s approval came during its Wednesday, June 18, meeting.

“This is the procedural step … where the town, subject to permissive referendum, has passed a local law that basically established the ambulance district,” Supervisor James Quigley said. “We’re under a timeline for Ulster County Real Property to create the district and have it in the computer system for when they process the tax bill for 2026. There is a deadline that we have in mind for late September to notify the county and provide them with the documentation on the creation of the district.”

The town can move forward with establishing the tax roll, unless it receives a petition seeking a permissive referendum with 268 valid signatures within 30 days after the district’s tentative approval. If a petition is received, the board will need to set a date for a public vote.

Officials presented statistics at the meeting that showed there have been improvements in response time for emergency calls.

In a report on the first three months of coverage by Empress Emergency Medical Services under a joint contract covering the towns of Ulster and Kingston, the company responded with an ambulance for 873 of 881 calls for a 99.1% response rate. Of the 881 calls, 23 were in the town of Kingston.

Empress had a response time of 6 minutes and 53 seconds for its two primary ambulances and 8 minutes, 45 seconds, for its additional unit, which was called into service 109 times.

Under the contract, Empress is required to reach the scene of calls within 11 minutes, 59 seconds, for at least 90% of dispatches. Before the agreement, response times averaged 10 minutes, 56 seconds, in 2024 before declining to 10 minutes, 6 seconds, in January. Average response time was 9 minutes, 27 seconds, in February using ambulances assigned by Ulster County Emergency Management.

Town Board members expect the district to have a $1.34 million budget for 2026, but they will review the draft figures when the contract is renegotiated over the coming months. While there was a $1 million budget for 2025, officials finalized the agreement at $1.28 million for 10 months of service, with the town of Kingston contributing about $83,000 to the cost.

Quigley said the improvement in response time has made the additional funding a good investment.

“What the report demonstrates and the contract performance demonstrates is the dramatic improvement in levels of service to the town of Ulster,” he said. “I think the two critical facts that determine whether people are going to say, ‘Yes, we needed this service,’ would be the average response time pre-contract combined with the number of mutual aid calls and the response time post-contract with the number of mutual aid calls.”

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