From The Press of Atlantic City — Free ambulance service in this town of 6,000 will end Monday when the local volunteer rescue squad disbands.
“It’s just time for us all to move on,” Assistant Chief Bill Scaplen said. “Nobody wants to go out of business.”
The group cited a lack of financial support from municipal officials, who said they are stunned by the decision, conveyed in a letter a week ago.
“I liked having a squad of our own, and I was hoping some day that they would take over full-time,” Committeewoman Janet Forman said.
Too full of volunteers with day jobs, Mullica’s squad has for five years paid Hammonton’s ambulance corps to respond to calls between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Now the squad has used most of its remaining finances to extend Hammonton’s coverage around the clock through June 15, Scaplen said. Chief Gary Franklin could not be reached for comment.
Unlike in Mullica, Hammonton’s nonprofit squad is paid, and it bills patients. Its 2006 tax return showed $2,159,991 in revenue, $2,170,223 in expenses and a cash reserve of $663,924. The squad also began covering Somers Point this year.
Hammonton Chief Chuck Kaczmarski could not be reached by telephone to provide his squad’s fee structure. In 2001, when the previous Mullica squad quit and Hammonton’s was hired temporarily, the base rate was $333.
“I think they’re still going to get pretty good services and response from Hammonton,” Scaplen said.
Mullica Township provides the squad two ambulances, insurance, gasoline and a bay in the Public Works garage, officials said. The squad pays for maintenance and equipment, and from its $16,500 slice in Mullica’s annual budget, it must send roughly $14,000 to Hammonton.
That leaves too little money to cover increasingly frequent repairs on the 20-year-old and 12-year-old ambulances, Scaplen said. Volunteers have sought newer ambulances from the government and a building with running water, but there is disagreement over how urgently and specifically those requests were made.
“I’ve put on my show to them with the PowerPoint presentation, showing where we are,” Scaplen said. “We’ve been extremely patient, in my opinion. … We’re out there killing ourselves to maintain things, and it just seems like we’re not getting anywhere.
The township’s budget is tight, but officials knew the squad had needs. The sides had discussed the possibility of the squad renting a Moss Mill Road tract and erecting a building, Mayor William Kennedy said.
“We didn’t really get into that too much,” Kennedy said. Forman felt the previous discussions were casual and she was “waiting to hear a formal request.” Forman said she was “devastated” and “absolutely flabbergasted” at the news.
A “dejected” Deputy Mayor Michael St. Amour wondered whether the committee could have helped more if given more notice. Since the Hammonton extension has already been reached, St. Amour said, “they had to have been discussing this internally for a matter of time.”
The government must move quickly to find a new ambulance provider, St. Amour said, even though the township is covered for another six months. Preliminary merger talks with Egg Harbor City broke down earlier this year, and the city now partners with Galloway Township.
Mullica’s 17 volunteers usually don’t spend their shifts in the ambulance bay, instead driving there when a call comes in. Scaplen keeps a first-responder bag in his car and sometimes responds directly from his house.
The squad spent Wednesday evening cleaning up and cleaning out its makeshift home. The night before, volunteers assisted on a call out of town, then thought about what they’d be missing.
“Coming back from Atlantic City, it just hit us: We’re not going to be doing this anymore,” Scaplen said.
20 comments:
Mrs. Forman has been sitting on committee now for six years. I find it very hard to believe that she was "flabbergasted" when told of the rescue squad pulling the plug. She can't be that dense about the ongoing issues with the rescue squad. "Unexpected" or "surprised" perhaps might have been a more apt comment.
I agree with comment #1.For whatever reasons the squad made its decision Mrs Forman simply cant throw the squad ubder the bus and say she had no idea this was impending(flabbergasted ). She has seen Mr Franklin appear often at committee meetings with hat in hand along with others from the squad. This occurs a few times each year. She and Mrs Chasey met with Mr Franklin on numerous occasions and also signed a letter of support. The squad did everything but light flares. I guess they finally realized they were being played and closed shop. Maybe there is plenty of blame but Mrs Forman was pretty quick to turn on them that she was totally surprised and shame on them for being so rash and sneaky .She lets the reader assume that she had no knowledge or warning about this . I give her the raspberry acting award for this one.
Mrs. Forman should never be underestimated.
If you sit on township committee for six years, have numerous meetings with Chief Franklin and others from the rescue squad where they continously describe their aging equipment and deplorable conditions and you do NOTHING, then state that you are "flabbergasted", you might be a Mullica Republican.
Lets not forget that a "dejected" Mr. St. Amour wondered whether the committee could have helped more if given more notice, Mr.StAmour has also seen the rescue squad come to meetings requesting help. Mr. St Amour has pushed for a 2nd shared service study when all that need to be done was to lease a piece of property to the rescue squad. It should also be noted that the Stipend check that the Township CFO gives to the Squad was suppose to be issued in June but did not get issued until September. WHY? ALL members of the Township Committee are responsible for what has happened. The solution to the problem is to support the rescue squad. Lease them a piece of land, so that they can construct a building to house the ambulance and have running water. Please come out to the Tuesday meeting and hear both sides of the story.
Rescue Squad Member
Kennedy should have made the squad his first priority,instead of the Vets memorial. He could have told the committee the squad needed more help but it seems that he can't open his mouth without the puppetmasters' pulling his strings. Chasey and Forman had no problem spending thousands of dollars to help Waszen. The community's welfare is low on their list.
To the rescue squad member
I would like to ask you why you would want to build a building with your money on leased land. In the end that building would belong to the Twp.
I was under the impression that the state was giving grants for shared service studies.
You said to come to the meeting on Tuesday and hear both sides and the solution is to lease the squad the land. Didn't you just disband the squad? Didn't you pay Hammonton to take over for you?
If you don't have people available during the day,the town will still have shared services if you come back.
It sounds like you are staging a walkout and plan to come back if all your requests are met.
I would hope some kind of better arrangement could be made for you. You would never own a building erected on leased land. That is not a smart way to spend your dollars.
This should be a wakeup call to Gary and the rest of the squad that during each election they were given full"support" by several of these politicans whose only purpose was to rile up the volunteers to get out the vote for their"friends". Didnt Chasey and Forman assure you that the ambulance report would never pass muster even though they voted to do it? They(volunteers) were played as suckers who got nothing but false promises and excuses . Hopefully the volunteers will speak not only with their voices but at the polls. Gary, please wake up to your false friends playing on your emotions, Maybe you may address the issue and set the record straight as to did Committee have any idea you guys were fed up living in a garage bay w/o water for how many years?Who did you tell and when and how many times? Oh, I forgot you never submitted a formal request@
I have been following this story since the first article on 11/16/08. I was upset about the outdated equipment and the garage. I started asking people about the situation and I heard that the squad refused to take a bay in the firehouse and that alot of money is raised by donations. Also,that the squad would not consider shared services with Egg Harbor City because of ego problems.
When I read this article I was not surprised that they were disbanding. The only thing that surprised me was that the Mullica squad assisted on a call out of town and came back from Atlantic City. It struck me that was a long way to go with the town's old ambulance,our gas money and insurance.
The comment from the rescue squad worker here about wanting land to build a structure,leads me to believe that this disbanding is being used to force the council to supply a building. Maybe next year they'll walk out again and demand a new ambulance.
Now is the time to cut the political ties and contract with Hammonton 24/7 as was suggested years ago. It seems that this rescue squad has severe problems with the fire dept. and the council. It will be alot easier to deal with professionals for a set fee.
I am glad you are following the story. I have a couple of additional facts that I think you should know. I have been with the squad for 6yrs and never once during those 6 yrs have we been invited into one of the Twp Fire Houses. Yes, a study was done and some of it posted on this blog about sharing services or going to a paid full time squad. That study showed that it would be cost prohibitive to go to a paid squad. Please read the study. The Squad meet with Egg Harbor City to discuss shared services. Galloway Twp EMS has been covering Egg Harbor City without being compensated for a long time, Egg Harbor City finally started paying Galloway the same way Mullica pays Hammonton. This is consider shared services.
The Rescue Squad would like to lease the old ambulance building land from the Twp and construct a new building. This would be a positive for the Twp and the Squad. If at some point in the future, the Squad went paid or disband, the Twp would get the property back and a building. The Squad is trying to work with the Twp, to get a building to run out. In the 6 yrs that I have been here, I have seen the Squad grow from 6 members to 15 members along with a Jr. First Aide group. The Squad had 3 members going through EMT class this Fall, those members took their test on Monday night. Also, if ACMC - Mainland is on divert, we are required to go to the next nearest hospital or if the call is a trauma we are required to go to a Level 1 Trauma City - ACMC -Atlantic City.
Township Committee should have obviously been aware of the financial aspect of this situation. And despite the acting job attempted by Ms.Forman, the reality of the situation is that if it is less expensive to contract out these services then that is what should be done - PERIOD! While it is great that we have volunteers willing, able and trained to provide these incredibly important services living here in the township, to me it is a matter of fiscal responsibility. While those supporting the existence of the rescue squad can argue that every minute is precious, I would be curious to see the differences in response times between Hammonton and Mullica. While Mullicans may be closer, from what I have read, they are leaving from their homes and first traveling to the deplorable shanty shack that the township has given them to work out of while I would assume that Hammonton paid rescue members would be immediately leaving from their squad house. Unfortunately, for all involved (squad members and taxpayers), there has been so much politics and egos at play here that it is hard to sort fact from fiction for the interested observer. Whether the rescue squad remains disbanded or not, all Mullicans owe them a great deal of gratitude for doing such a difficult job for so many years. Thank You!
I received two letters from the squad today explaining the resignation and the decommissioning of the Mullica EMS Squad. I am assuming that the whole town received these letters.
Now I am reading here that you want a building and land and you are working with the Twp.
What's going on here? Either you have not been told that the squad is finished or you are part of a scam to embarrass the council into giving you what you want.
Do you really think that telling the public that the Twp. has done "precious little" to help in 8 yrs. and being on the front page of the Region section is going to help your cause with the council.
Maybe you should have told them that you were going to disband if you didn't get your building and give them a chance to act or not.
It seems that it's a little late to be asking for things.
To quote from the Twp. website:
"The possibility of housing the ambulance in one of our existing four firehouses was also explored,which would have saved a significant amount of money on building expenses,insurance,operating and maintenance. The Rescue Squad did not consider this to be a feasible option"
Now ,I would like to ask this Squad member if the Twp. put up a false statement on the town site.
Here's something else on the Twp. site.
"Egg Harbor City needed more volunteers; we needed new equipment and facilities. Mullica had qualified EMTs,and EHC had new ambulances and an existing facility. Talks broke down after the Mullica Rescue Squad stated their opposition to the merger; in light of that opposition, Egg Harbor City chose to go in another direction."
Looks like the Squad was opposed to alot of things. It's almost like the bully saying "you play the game by my rules or else I'll take my ball and go home".
Seems like we have all of the ingredients for a very interesting council meeting this Tuesday.
From the article:
"Too full of volunteers with day jobs, Mullica's squad has for five years paid Hammonton's ambulance corps to respond to calls between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m."
...
"'I think they're still going to get pretty good services and response from Hammonton,' Scaplen said."
I guess we're going to have Hammonton 24/7 at least until June. Maybe we'll be lucky and the Elwood fire house will take over again. They covered the town 24/7 and took 98% of all calls. It was a big mistake to remove the ambulances from them and it caused a lot of hard feelings.
Last year,the committee voted to keep the present Squad and ignored the sub-committee's recommendation that they go 24/7 with Hammonton.
I don't have a clue what this committee is going to do. This Squad only is in service 12 hrs a night and there are really big issues of land,a building and possibly a new ambulance. The Squad has shown their righteous resentment toward the council this week for the lack of support.
The whole situation is terrible for everyone. It's sad to think that all of this could have been avoided if the right decisions for the community were made years ago. It is time to take politics and the Republican Club out of this mess and put the people of Mullica as the top priority.
The article says that the Squad sends approx. $14,000 to Hammonton for coverage of the day shift. Mrs. Chasey said in her statement about the April 24,2007 meeting that our citizens would NOT be charged by Hammonton. I heard that every call to Mullica by Hammonton is charged to the person they pick up. Does any know what the $14,000 is for?
Does anyone know if the State gives money to our town for the volunteer fire depts. and rescue squad?
No, the State of New Jersey provides no funds just rules and regulations that cost money.
Post a Comment