HIGHTSTOWN: EMS deal with Robbinsville once again under scrutiny

Local volunteer leader: Lack of deal with EW ‘shameful’

By Sean Ruppert, Staff Writer
   HIGHTSTOWN — A volunteer leader told the Borough Council this week that it is “shameful” the borough hasn’t entered into an agreement with East Windsor for emergency medical services.
   Mayor Bob Patten seemed resistant to the idea, while the council members did not indicate their opinions and took no action.
   First Aid Squad Capt. Curtis Crowell — 2008 Borough Volunteer of the Year and husband of Councilwoman Isabel McGinty — strongly recommended a deal with East Windsor at Tuesday’s council budget meeting.
   Mayor Patten said the borough shouldn’t necessarily look at East Windsor as its only possible partner. He also claimed that East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov — with whom he has had a contentious relationship for years — had indicated in a letter that she did not want to make any arrangements with Hightstown.
   ”She said, and I am paraphrasing here, that she won’t consider any shared services until we ‘get our act together,’ whatever that means,” Mayor Patten said.
   In January 2007, Mayor Mironov and two East Windsor Township Council members sent a letter to Mayor Patten responding to a request he made on Jan. 24 that the township decide by Feb. 5 whether it wanted to join Hightstown in a garbage collection service. Mayor Mironov responded in her letter by saying that it was not nearly enough time to fully investigate the issue and that East Windsor’s government was not run by “the seat of our pants.”
   The letter also stated that the East Windsor mayor and council did not want to be dragged into Hightstown politics and that they were tired of Mayor Patten blaming the borough’s financial situation on the township.
   Mayor Mironov repeated Wednesday that East Windsor had offered to let Hightstown join the township on a five-year contract with Monmouth Ocean Hospital Services Corp. (MONOC) for EMS service in 2005.
   ”I personally spoke with him three times and I sent him a letter about the contract,” she said. “He chose at that time, for his own reasons, not to participate with East Windsor Township in that service.”
   That rejection, borough officials have said, came at a time when Hightstown was getting free EMS service from St. Francis Emergency Medical Services. The arrangement ended in November 2005, when the borough paid $17,000 to continue the service until Jan 2, 2006.
   The borough’s EMS services are now provided primarily by Robbinsville through an interlocal agreement that costs more than $200,000. The arrangement brought in $15,500 in billing revenue to the borough in 2008.
   Borough volunteers supplement the Robbinsville EMS coverage on some nights.
   With the town facing an approximately $510,000 budget shortfall — the equivalent of a 24-cent tax hike under last year’s property valuation — the service’s high price tag has received a considerable amount of attention from the Borough Council, as it did last year when no changes were made.
   This year a new council budget committee recently unveiled recommendations that include serious investigation of other options for providing EMS.
   Councilman Mike Theokas, who sits on that committee, suggested the council begin with the EMS service when looking for areas to make substantive cuts Feb. 26.
   Councilman Larry Quattrone, another committee member, said the borough could try an all-volunteer service again, but that it wasn’t without risk.
   ”It is sort of like not buying that insurance policy,” he said.
   On Tuesday, Mr. Crowell appeared before the council and presented a breakdown of the EMS costs to Hightstown residents in 2008. The wages paid to the professional EMS workers comprise about 91 percent of the total expenditures. The borough paid $208,044 in wages to Robbinsville, along with $6,333 for equipment, $1,400 for general membership, $5,597 for medical equipment and supplies, all to the volunteer squad, for a total of $228,834.
   The volunteer squad also spent $29,272 of its own funds.
   Councilman Jeff Bond questioned Mr. Crowell about different aspects of the EMS service, but Mr. Crowell kept coming back to the same point.
   ”We have to have some reasonable agreement with the township because that is our obvious partner,” Mr. Crowell said. “I don’t think we have made enough of an effort to get that done.”