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Publish Date : 28-Dec-2013

The Ramapo Town Board awarded Rockland Paramedics a new 3-year contract worth $2 million a year.

The agreement is $500,000 less per year than the town had agreed to pay in 2013. The board reduced the 2013 contract payment from $2.5 million to $2.2 million.

Rockland Paramedic Services provided advanced life support services in town, working with local volunteer ambulance corps, for more than 2 decades. However, The relationship seemed to be in jeopardy, this year. At a November meeting, the Town Board decided not to renew the contract in hope of finding some savings.

EMStar Ambulance also expressed a strong interest in picking up the contract.

Concerned members of the local emergency medical service community sent out letters to the town praising Rockland Paramedic Services' work over the years and urging the town to keep the contract.

Ray Florida, Executive Director of Rockland Paramedic Services, said, "thank you for your confidence. I'd like to commend the town for making the right decision because this is not a waste removal contract. This is the contract where people's lives are hanging in the balance."

This decision didn't sit well with Joseph Zupnik, EMStar's principal. The says the the board did not give his agency adequate opportunities to discuss its $1.5 million per year proposal.

"In the absence of competition, the cost the town is being charged for the service will continue to go up," Zupnik said.

Israel Dahan, an attorney representing EMStar, wrote a letter to Ramapo Town Attorney Michael Klein, stating that entering into a contract with Rockland Paramedic Services was not "in the best interest of the town, financially or otherwise, and is likely a breach of the Town Board's duties and obligations to Ramapo taxpayers."

Klein replied that the advanced life support service is professional service, which makes it exempt from the state's competitive bidding requirements.

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