By Stephanie Prokop, Staff Writer
Bordentown Township and Bordentown City have taken another step toward consolidating services to save money and increase efficiency in both towns.
The township and city are working on the final details of emergency medical service consolidation.
Bordentown Township Mayor George Chidley said this week the township will have the details ironed out before the end of February. An agreement to merge services was made July 1, 2007.
Mayor Chidley said the move will save money, time and manpower in both municipalities. “With this system both communities benefit,” he said.
Bordentown City previously staffed its EMS team with volunteers, along with help from two full-time city employees.
The details of how each municipality will financially support the system are still being discussed, Mayor Chidley added.
Bordentown Township EMS workers previously also received a stipend to act as firefighters when needed.
Talks of consolidation came up late last spring when that stipend, around $125,000, was going to rise to nearly $400,000, after the fire district came to the township asking for salary increases.
”They were proposing a higher salary increase and for more costs for equipment, and that’s when we started looking into other options,” Mayor Chidley added.
At that time the township decided to take action to keep costs down, and looked into going to bid with private ambulance companies.
Bordentown City Commissioner James Lynch said the headquarters of the EMS will be in the Hope Hose Humane Company station on West Burlington Street in Bordentown City. Both towns will house ambulances in this building.
”This is a three-way partnership,” said Mr. Lynch. “This really is a win, win, win.”
”Right now Hope is looking into the agreement, making sure that the language is right,” he added.
He described the merger as something that is “long overdue” but after the agreement is completely finalized the city and township will have EMS assistance available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Currently, the city has two ambulances, and the township has two ambulances, which were moved to the Hope House in July.
While officials have not yet determined the total savings, they do estimate that it will be substantially cheaper.
”Somewhere in the several hundred thousands of dollars cheaper,” estimated Mayor Chidley.
”This is something that we’ve been striving to have for a long time now,” said Commissioner Lynch.
In midsummer 2007, Bordentown Township and Bordentown City entered into a shared services agreement, consolidating both of their courts.
The books are maintained separately, and the two municipalities share a staff.
”There are big advantages to the city as well as to the township,” said Mayor Chidley.
”Our courts went from having a lot of backlog to no backlogs at all,” he added.