Let’s say each town has 2 ambuances, at $120,000 each. That would be $1,200,000.00 If these towns are covered by 2 ambulances, plus 1 for a back-up that would come out to $360,000.00 for a savings of $840,000.00 or $160,000.00 per town, just in vehicle costs.

As far as an ALS call with a paramedic, I think the cost actually is much higher, depending on the call. As far as a “regional fire/ems service” having medic’s, It can’t happen at this point in time. As of right now, The Paramedics have to be hospital based. There cannot be a municipality based paramedic system in the state due to state law. MONOC is I believe owned by numerous hospitals or they have a contract with them, not exactly sure on that one.

Your comment about the amount of runs and “don’t get me started on the fire estimates” leads me to b elieve that these towns have more fire calls than EMS calls. That seems hard to believe, especially seeing the amount of ambulances going down Broad St. on the way to the hospital.

Whackersunite estimated 15 as a low-ball estimate, which puts us at around $3.5 million in personnel costs. I still think we’d need more, but in any case, selling firehouses isn’t going to bring us enough money to cover payroll for more than a year at that rate.

Who pays for training and physicals now for firefighters?

LordJohn,
It looks like several towns with professional firefighters regionalized. And now they’re leaving firehouses unstaffed to save money. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/07/06/meserve.budget.firefighters.cnn

I would love to see firefighters in our towns get compensated, but I just don’t see how we can pay for it.

So lets get this correct, you are suggesting we fire DUAL certified/licensed personel as paramedic/firemen to handle 5 jurisdictions. Please, argue this with someone who has as low of a competency as you…. Do you know what the “average” ALS (means paramedic level service, im sure you wouldnt know that) bill costs!?!? About $3-5000. FOR ONE PATIENT. ONE CALL. Are you suggesting tax paying residents private insurance companies cover this bill? Do you even know the amount of uninsured in these 5 towns?? That would be all of your precious savings (which i doubt there would be any) going to eat the costs of those bills….

And 5 firemen to handle a fire!? Are you really kidding me?! Thats like saying there only needs to be one person to run the US- no congress or cabniet or anything else- just the president. So low balling it- you have to have atleast 2 “medical” whether they be medics or emts, a RIT team which is 6 dedicated guys who cannot do anything else except standby for firefigther rescue, an officer to run command, and id say atleast 6 guys to have 3 active hose lines- 2 to a line. So Ive low balled numbers for you and were at 15. Real cost effective huh? The reason AP gets away with it is because they can call other VOLUNTEER towns for mutual aid manpower. We wouldnt have that ability since you are stripping all the surrounding towns!! And who is paying for all their yearly, mandated training and physical requirements….

Do you know the call volume these towns have!? Youd be shocked and amazed… Red Bank alone can have 5 EMS calls a day and Ill be kind and say 1 in FH, 1 in Rumson, 2 in Shrewsbury, 1 in LS. So we know have 10 EMS calls. Dont even get me started on fire estimates….

I have just gotten started. Stop acting such a fool and go write somewhere where the people reading don’t speak english… This way you can get away which such lies.

Just to give you a little insight, there are regulations set forth by the National Fire Protection Agency that specify how many firefighters are to respond to an emergency on a fire apparatus.

Ok, now you 5 firefighters on engines, ladders, and possibly ambulances to cover 5 towns. In other words, 1 firefighter per town. You should do some research before you come here posting information you know little about

I would bet there is some cost savings to be had by centralizing fire departments, but combining firehouses does not necessarily mean hiring professionals.

Your estimate of $4 million for the sale of firehouses does not cover the likely personnel costs for one year. But if it did cover the cost of pros for 4 years, then we’d see a tax jump in year 5.

The cost saving on much of this has been done for the police departments, and while most are not in favor of doing this the firm hired to do this did point to an immediate yearly savings of 1 mil. with a gain above that after the first year.

In all honesty it will probably never be done and we can argue/talk about ‘if’ it will save us any money as tax payers. However, we as citizens of these towns complain about property taxes yet we don’t have it in us to vote these type of changes into law. If nothing changes our taxes will only go up further and we will all still be standing around looking at each other wondering when things will change.