Delaware County supervisors debate county-run ambulance service, sales-tax sharing amid AMR contract

At a meeting of the Delaware County Board of Supervisors, members discussed whether the county should establish a county-run ambulance service or continue contracting with AMR, focusing on staffing, long-term costs and whether sales-tax sharing could relieve towns that maintain local ambulance or police services.

The discussion followed several supervisors raising concerns that some towns that operate volunteer or town-run ambulance services are being asked to pay countywide taxes that will fund an umbrella emergency medical services contract. “I just would hate to see that end up in our situation with the EMS when there's something we could address at this moment,” one supervisor said during the discussion.

County staff responded with operational and financial context. “Personal cost alone will be over $1,200,000 per year,” a county staff member said when asked about the cost to run an in‑house ambulance operation. The staff member also said the county has struggled to meet minimum staffing requirements in recent years: “We have not met our minimum staffing requirements and not at 1 center over the last 3 years. You know, there's been days where we've had to ... cut back to 2 people … just because there's nobody for work.”

Supervisors who favored the current contract with AMR argued the contractor has been able to provide staff when the county could not. “AMR has found people. Whether they gotta bring them here from Syracuse or whatever, you know, they've fulfilled that contract for the people,” the staff member said, describing recent service continuity under the contract. County officials said two ambulances dedicated to county 911 responses are intended to reduce response times and avoid diverting resources to nonemergency facility-to-facility transfers.

Several supervisors pressed for more analysis of long-term fiscal trade-offs. One asked staff to provide comparative figures showing the difference between contracting and an in‑house operation over a multi‑year horizon; other supervisors asked for a per‑thousand tax-rate estimate to show the local impact. A supervisor also asked for options to protect towns that have invested in local ambulance services, proposing the finance committee explore mechanisms such as sales-tax sharing to reduce the local burden.

Board leadership and staff emphasized committee process and budget timing. The chair noted that the county operates through committees and that decisions about sales-tax distribution and any structural change to EMS would be handled in committee and considered in the budget process. Staff said the county budget and related fiscal analyses would be available in roughly a month as the county prepares for budget hearings and that any changes would follow committee review before full-board action.

No formal motion was made on creating a county-run ambulance service during the meeting; board members repeatedly directed the topic to committee for further study and asked staff for fiscal comparisons and cost-per-capita estimates. The conversation closed with multiple supervisors urging attention to both preserving volunteer and town-run services and ensuring countywide emergency coverage.

Ending: Supervisors agreed to continue the discussion in committee and to seek staff analysis ahead of budget deliberations; no formal decision or vote on replacing the AMR contract was taken at the meeting.