Matt Coon, deputy Jamestown fire chief, speaks during the City Council’s work session this week. Screenshot courtesy jamestownny.gov

Matt Coon, deputy Jamestown fire chief, hopes a shared services agreement with Busti volunteer firefighters is just the first of several such agreements.

Members of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee unanimously approved a shared services agreement with the Busti Volunteer Fire Department that will allow Busti to receive reimbursement for ambulance responses in Jamestown and Jamestown to receive reimbursement if its ambulance responds to incidents in Busti. The agreement still needs the full approval of the City Council later this month and approval from Busti officials before it can take effect.

“Are Kiantone, Lakewood, Falconer all going to follow suit with a similar agreement?” asked Councilman Bill Reynolds, R-Ward 5.

“My goal would be yes, to answer your question,” Coon replied. “This is the first agreement and I’m hoping we can use this as the template for it. I’ve been contacted by the Falconer fire department. Falconer is interested in doing a billing arrangement as well. We use them quite a bit. My goal would be to get all five surrounding districts to be a party to an agreement similar to this that would allow that mutual response both in and out and including Lakewood, because we use Lakewood.”

The EMS Cost Recovery Act was approved by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022. It allows volunteer fire departments to bill for EMS services provided, but only in their service territory. The legislation creates a four-year window for EMS billing that ends in 2026.

“Previous to that it’s something the Fireman’s Association of the State of New York, FASNY, had lobbied for 40 years and never thought they’d get it,” Coon said.

If Busti isn’t able to assemble a full crew to respond to a call, the Jamestown Fire Department will provide an EMT to provide patient care in Busti’s ambulance, because a Jamestown fire department vehicle would also be responding to the call. The Jamestown EMT would go to the hospital in the Busti ambulance to provide care, with that situation resulting in a split bill between the city and town. If Busti handles the entire transport, Busti would keep any revenue from the call – the same as the city does with Alstar Ambulance.

While the act has created other issues for volunteer fire departments, the shared services agreements proposed by Coon could provide a reimbursement for ambulance responses that are currently unpaid. Volunteer firefighters respond through the county’s mutual aid system into Jamestown when both Alstar Ambulance and Jamestown firefighter are unavailable – but they receive no payment for the call even though they are responding in a city with a paid fire department. Coon said the department is using volunteers from other places for one to two calls per day for day to day operations. While a new ambulance is planned to come in for the city, Coon expects for large instances such as a crash involving a bus or a snowstorm that the city will still rely on mutual aid in the future.

That was a point of contention in past years with some surrounding volunteer departments whose members were struggling under an increasing load of responses into the city and the department receiving no compensation. Shared services agreements like the proposal between Jamestown and Busti are necessary because state Health Department rules don’t allow Busti to bill for EMS calls outside its delineated service territory.

“This agreement would actually kill two birds with one stone,” Coon said. “Not only would it allow Busti to come in on an automatic mutual aid basis because we have an agreement to do that, it would allow Busti to write the bill for those transports that they do for us under a shared revenue arrangement. Having this shared services agreement will also cover us in the event we go out to Busti’s fire district to cover calls for them. “We do use Busti on a regular basis .As you’re well aware we’ve used several of the surrounding volunteer agencies at various points over the past 10 years. This will allow them to recover those costs. It wouldn’t be a cost to us as the city to do this. This would allow the Busti Fire Department to bill to recoup some of those costs of providing service to us.”