County Weighs Cuts to Regional EMS

Bergen County officials are weighing scaling back or eliminating the county's regional ambulance service.

The Bergen Regional Emergency Medical Service rents space from the and covers the many county facilities located in the Borough from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.. The regional EMS covers county buildings throughout Bergen, and helps cover municipalities as well.

County Administrator Edward Trawinski said cutting the service would save the county about $900,000. But cutting the service isn't the most likely option, at least not immediately.

Currently the service operates under the purview of the Bergen County Technical Schools and Special Services. Trawinski, along with a state study, said it didn't make sense to use school money for an ambulance service.

"It seems like it doesn't make sense," he said.

If the service is to survive, Trawinski said it will likely do so as a streamlined version of itself, and move under the Department of Public Safety by the end of the year. The service has 10 employees, as well as a director and a deputy director.

Each shift has two supervisors and eight EMTs.

"A director, a deputy director and then four shift people, two on each shift to supervise, seems to me to be excessive," Trawinski said.

In addition to possible personnel cuts, Trawinski is also looking into why the service rents space from Paramus, rather than using one of the county facilities in the Borough. He also questioned the county service's work rate: in 2010 the regional EMS responded to 442 calls.

Judy Hermann, an EMT with the county service, said she and other EMTs would be lobbying the County Freeholders to preserve the Bergen Regional EMS.

"We're trying to do everything we can to ensure that it goes our way," Hermann said.