Time and again on EMS

To the editor:

A City Council Member was recently paraphrased stating she thinks the Council has no say in the city’s contract negotiations with the FDNY’s EMS workers (“EMS peer support program included in budget,” The Chief, July 11). Why then in April did the Council issue a press release about its adding $50 million for EMS to the FY 2026 NYC budget, acknowledging EMS pay disparity with firefighters?

For the umpteenth time, the Council's words, like the mayor's previously, resulted in no justice.  To cap it off, the new city budget projects a payroll for a hoped-for, fully filled 4,564-member EMS workforce that will cost taxpayers $26 million less than the estimated $400 million in fees that EMS will bring into city coffers.

The Council is the nominal oversight agency for FDNY EMS, but it is helpless to change the reason EMS doesn't have enough trained EMTs and paramedics: unjust pay.

The Council has sued the mayor over all sorts of city laws. Inexplicably, it has never done so when it comes to acknowledging the "uniform status" of the FDNY EMS in contract negotiations.  The Office of Labor Relations still refuses to recognize the EMS as such. The result is a current pay difference of $40 thousand between workers in the next lowest paid "uniform service" — Sanitation — and FDNY EMTs with similar time on the job. 

Need an ambulance? Be aware that FDNY firefighter and EMS response times to life-threatening medical emergencies are worse today than they were 25 years ago.  

If city sanitation workers don't collect our trash, we may see more rats and roaches. When EMS doesn't arrive in time, we may die. For FY 2024, the FDNY reported 74 deaths from fires.  Is it time to report how many New Yorkers die while waiting for ambulances?

Helen Northmore