Greene County officials review plan to consolidate EMS; analysis shows roughly $4.1 million annual increase

Greene County officials and town supervisors spent a working session reviewing a detailed financial analysis of a proposed countywide emergency medical services system that would shift local town EMS levies to a county levy and add staffing. County staff and analysts said the consolidated model would increase the operation’s annual cost from roughly $11 million today to about $15 million — an increase of approximately $4.1 million in new, recurring spending.

County staff leading the review warned that no decisions have been made. “Nothing, literally nothing has been decided yet,” a county staff member said, urging participants to treat the numbers as a work in progress.

The analysis presented three main uncertainties: (1) the current condition and remaining useful life of EMS vehicles and other capital assets, which the team said has not been completed; (2) whether centralizing billing and procurement would produce measurable savings and, if so, how long it would take to show in revenues and costs; and (3) the distributional effects of moving town levies to a countywide levy across 14 taxing jurisdictions, which could raise taxes in some towns and lower them in others.

Why it matters: Supervisors and elected legislators said the county is facing persistent staffing and coverage pressures in several local ambulance services and wants a sustainable system before coverage gaps worsen. The draft model assumes an expanded personnel base intended to reduce days with limited units available and to smooth coverage across the county.

Key numbers and assumptions

- Current combined operation: presented at roughly $11 million per year (presentation materials show $10,000,009–$11,000,009 in different tables; staff summarized the operating baseline as about $11 million).

- Projected consolidated operation: about $15 million per year after raising wages and adding personnel (presenters described the $4.1 million as new annual money above current adopted budgets).

- Increase per…