By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City is expected to formally approve a two-year contract agreement with the union representing employees in the Emergency Medical Services division.
The contract is scheduled to be voted on by City Council at its meeting Tuesday. A copy of the proposed agreement is attached to the Council agenda.
The International Association of EMTs and Paramedics, or (IAEP), represents seven full-time employees and eight part-timers, city spokeswoman Katherine Custer said. Bruce Knoll, Jr., the chief of EMS, is not part of the agreement.
The contract runs retroactively to Jan. 1, 2022, and expires Dec. 31, 2023.
Among other benefits, it spells out the wages, healthcare coverage and vacation, holiday and sick time employees will receive.
For 2023, both full-time and part-time employees will earn $20.50 per hour. In 2022, the hourly wage was $18 for full-time employees and $17 for part-timers, according to the agreement.
In 2017, Sea Isle established a professional EMS unit instead of continuing to rely on the dwindling volunteer ambulance corps that has served the town for more than 50 years.
Founded in 1956, the ambulance corps struggled in recent years to find enough volunteers to provide 24-hour emergency service. City officials explained that the volunteers simply could not devote enough time to the ambulance squad because of the demands of their full-time jobs.
Mayor Leonard Desiderio cited the “diminishing ability” of the volunteer ambulance squad to provide round-the-clock rescue services as the reason he supported establishing a professional EMS staff in 2017.
The city-run EMS unit is in charge of ambulance and emergency operations. City officials said volunteers from the volunteer ambulance corps supplement the full-time emergency workers as part of a hybrid force.
“We take public safety very seriously in Sea Isle City, and, as a resident of this community, I sleep soundly at night knowing that we have a well-trained emergency medical team and other dedicated first responders,” Custer said in a text Monday.
“Every town relies on their first responders, but in a shore community such as ours, they play an even more important role – especially when our population swells in the summer and many people flock to Sea Isle for a variety of activities,” she added.
In a statement posted on the city’s website, Knoll said the EMS unit “strives to provide the highest level of pre-hospital emergency care to the residents and visitors of Sea Isle City in time of illness or injury.”
The city staffs a minimum of two certified Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) at all times, with additional staffing added for high-demand times and special events. Additional staffing is requested upon additional calls for service. Units provide emergency response to Sea Isle City, as well as neighboring communities if requested, Knoll said in the statement.
In addition to providing the city’s emergency response services, EMS personnel are active in preventive community medicine, providing blood pressure checks and CPR and first aid training to city residents, Knoll said.
