By Stephen T. Watson
The Buffalo News
The Town of Tonawanda is moving forward with a municipal ambulance corps – just on a far smaller scale than proposed one year ago. And the town will continue to rely on the private ambulance company it sought to replace, at least in part, because of concerns over delays in emergency response times.
The Town Board on Monday is set to approve a new, two-year agreement with Twin City Ambulance, which has continued providing ambulance service to the town over the past 12 months.
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Once the deal takes effect, Twin City will shift from around-the-clock coverage to 16-hour-per-day ambulance service in the town and Village of Kenmore. The town will fill the other eight hours of the day and, on Monday, plans to hire four new EMTs to staff its ambulance service.
That’s far fewer than the 20 EMTs the town said it expected to hire when it announced its plans for the new service last October.
The town bought four ambulances earlier this year, but the service never got started.
Tonawanda Supervisor Joseph Emminger on Friday said launching the town ambulance service was more complicated than anticipated, with hiring EMTs a particular struggle. But he insisted town residents will receive improved emergency service – even under the scaled-back version of the plan – and at no additional cost to taxpayers.
“We’re just happy, very happy, that we’re able to take this step forward with Twin City,” Emminger told The Buffalo News. “We’re very confident that all parties will be serving the citizens of the town to the best of our abilities over the next two years.”
Emminger last October said concerns raised by town officials over delays in ambulances getting to emergencies in Tonawanda and Kenmore drove the town to explore the idea of starting its own service. A consultant hired by the town, Fitch & Associates, recommended buying four ambulances and hiring 20 EMTs to staff them.
Tonawanda is part of a growing trend of municipalities starting their own ambulance services, including Niagara and Erie counties.
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They predicted it would be up and running early this year, with full service by the end of 2025, but instead the four ambulances purchased for $1 million have remained idled.
Private ambulance services have had difficulty in hiring new EMTs. But town officials hoped to fare better by offering competitive pay and benefits and an attractive schedule.
Twin City previously said it was blindsided by Tonawanda’s announcement. The company said the town never contacted them about any response-time concerns and its executives refuted the town’s claims and the consultant’s conclusions.
Last October, town officials predicted the new service would launch early this year and be fully operational by the end of 2025. Instead, the four ambulances purchased by the town for nearly $1 million have remained idled.
“I’ll be the first to admit I was very aggressive with the time frame, because we wanted to get the best service that we could to the residents,” Emminger said. “So now, hindsight 20/20, it was more complicated than I anticipated. And that goes not only from getting workers, but also from getting state approvals.”
All the while, Twin City continued to provide the same level of ambulance service to the town as it had before, though without a formal agreement, Twin City President Terry Clark said previously.
The Democratic town supervisor publicly continued to express optimism about the town’s ambulance corps, even as the plan drew criticism from Tonawanda Republicans.
With the launch of the town service delayed through this summer, and hiring continuing to lag, town officials pivoted to partnering with Twin City on a hybrid municipal-private ambulance program.
Under the proposed agreement, Twin City will continue to provide 24-hour coverage in the town and village until Tonawanda is ready to get its own ambulance on the road. At that time, Twin City will commit to stationing an ambulance within the town for 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Emminger said the town will have one ambulance in service, and one available in reserve, for the eight-hour period between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily.
“With us joining their forces, I think the response times will improve,” Emminger said.
The town expects to get its ambulance into service by Dec. 1 , he said. It will only need two of its four ambulances and will seek to sell, or lease, the other two vehicles to another private or municipal ambulance service, Emminger said.
He noted the town received a $250,000 state grant, through the office of Assembly Member Bill Conrad, D- Town of Tonawanda, to cover the cost of one of the new ambulances.
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Tonawanda Supervisor Joseph Emminger gave his annual State of the Town address on Friday.
Emminger said, even at its reduced scale, the ambulance service will bring in enough insurance revenue to cover the cost of paying off the ambulance bond, hiring the new EMTs and any overhead. That’s even assuming the town can’t sell or lease the two other ambulances, he said.
Clark has signed off on the two-year agreement, which runs through October 2027. It awaits Town Board approval on Monday and Emminger’s signature.
“This is certainly not where we expected to be a year ago, but I believe we have achieved a balance where the town can generate a bit of revenue from ambulance service without impacting our operation to the point that we would have to withdraw service from the town,” Clark said Friday evening.
“When we began this process, we were genuinely concerned that the town would be deploying just enough resources to make it impossible for Twin City to operate in the town, but not enough resources to adequately cover the demand for service,” Clark added. “I think we have a plan that will be a low-risk prospect to the taxpayer, and will still provide enough depth on the bench to adequately cover the call volume that exists in the town and village.”
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