East Hampton Village Will Cut Checks For EMTs, New Fire Trucks

East Hampton Village is planning to begin paying emergency medical technicians to stand by at the East Hampton Village Volunteer Ambulance barn during the daytime hours, when volunteers may be working and less able to respond quickly to emergency calls.

Mayor Jerry Larsen said this week he hopes to have a roster of EMTs in place by June 1. The village, he said, will pay EMTs $25 an hour.

The mayor said the move is precautionary, with an eye toward the rising number of ambulance calls.

“We’re not desperate right now — our volunteers are keeping up very well, they do a great job — but with summer coming and the volume of calls rising, we’re just a little worried we might not be able to keep up with the call volume,” Larsen, a former chief of police, said. “You need at least two people for an ambulance to respond, and ideally you don’t want your paramedic to have to go to the hospital if he or she is not necessarily needed.”

The East End is one of the last places on Long Island where fire and ambulance services are staffed almost exclusively by volunteers. But the rising cost of living and more demands on people’s time have steadily winnowed the ranks of volunteers in local fire departments and ambulance companies in recent decades.

Municipalities have long pointed to a not-too-distant future when they may have to begin paying all of their emergency responders — and the tax implications that will carry.

Every local ambulance corps now pays to have a paramedic — who receive more advanced medical training, similar to a registered nurse, and are able to provide critical medical care in the field that EMTs are not — on duty at all times. The Amagansett Fire Department began additionally paying EMTs to stand by with its ambulances several years ago because of a shortage of volunteers.

The East Hampton Village Board on Friday, April 22, also approved the purchase of $4.6 million worth of new fire trucks for the East Hampton Fire Department’s fleet.

The order of new trucks includes five new trucks in all, including a $1.7 million “tower ladder” truck and four other Pierce Enforcer vehicles, each ranging in price from $395,000 to $836,400.

The procurement of new fire trucks is the first in an ambitious capital improvement plan that Larsen’s administration has said is crucial to bring village equipment and facilities up to snuff after years of deferred improvements.

East Hampton Fire Department Chief Gerard Turza had pleaded with the board over the last year to replace aging fire trucks, like the ladder truck, that had become mechanical liabilities.

“We have a responsibility to the town as a whole to buy these fire trucks,” Village Trustee Chris Minardi, a member of the East Hampton Fire Department, said on Friday. “This is not a lavish purchase. We need these fire trucks. The tower ladder does cost $1.7 million, but it supports Montauk, Amagansett, Sag Harbor and Bridgehampton. These fire apparatus are very old and need to be replaced — yesterday.”

The village will pay for the vehicles through a 15-year bond, part of more than $8 million the village plans to borrow beginning in 2024 for capital projects and vehicle purchases.

The Village Board also approved more than $200,000 for the purchase of new equipment for the Department of Public Works and its maintenance garage on Friday.

The village’s accountants said that the bond will require about $600,000 per year in debt service, but will not require a tax increase because the village is due to complete payments on past bonds totaling about $650,000 in 2023 and the new bonds will simply be “backfilling” that debt.

“All of the things we’re putting together in this bond are essential,” Minardi said. “I’m very proud of it. I don’t see any problem paying it back. I’d like to be on a board that does things the right way, and this is the right way.”