Carlstadt Blog

Monday evening, May 25th, the Carlstadt Council passed a resolution asking the governor not to eliminate funding for training volunteer ambulance and rescue squad workers, commonly know as EMT’s.  

What prompted the resolution was a decision by the governor’s office to cut all funding for training EMTs.  On the surface, it seems like a simple cost cutting move on the state’s part as cutting training will save 4 million a year in spending.  However, in the NJ legislature, nothing is ever done for motives as simple as these.  Let’s examine the issue.

The training fund was established in 1995 to cover mandatory training for emergency services personnel.  This includes initial training and continuing education (also mandatory).  The money comes from a 50 cent surcharge on all traffic tickets.  Without the training, a volunteer cannot join a rescue or ambulance squad.  In effect, by eliminating free training you will be eliminating the volunteer EMT system (unless the volunteers pay out of their own pockets or local municipalities raise property taxes, not likely).  

This is the point of the governor’s decision.  It is not to save money.  The legislature typically wastes more than 4 million dollars before lunch each day.  The purpose of the decision is to hand the lucrative emergency services business over to hospitals.  There is a lot of money to be made in emergency services, especially ambulance calls.  Right now, volunteers are doing that work for free. By eliminating the volunteer EMT system, only hospitals will be able to provide this service and it won’t be for free.  Today, if you need an ambulance in Carlstadt due to an emergency, you don’t get a bill.  When the hospitals takes over EMT services, all the emergency calls which are now free will be billed.  You will be charged for every ambulance call, every emergency visit.  It’s a big cash cow the hospitals want in on.  The governor needs to keep the hospitals happy so as  to continue all the free social programs run through hospitals in the cities.  Eliminating the volunteer EMT system is his quid pro quo.

BTW, where are most of your volunteer squads?  In suburban towns, the heart of the middle class.  So in the end, you can see that it is not about saving 4 million a year.  It’s about putting another costly burden on the backs of the middle class in suburbia to continue funding the governor’s and the democrat’s pet projects in urban areas.