Monroe Town Supervisor Gives Half-Hearted Response To Question Concerning Emergency Services

There is no official movement on forming a task force to explore paying the EMS and firefighters in the Monroe-Woodbury area, despite the Supervisor's comments.

At the January 17th, 2024, Monroe Town Board meeting, I submitted the following as part of the public comment period. The letter is concerning the resolution (a similar one is currently before the Town and Village of Woodbury, as well as the Monroe-Woodbury School board), that would provide a 10% tax exemption for people in the area who volunteer as firefighters and EMS workers.

“I fully support implementation of the 10% tax exemption for volunteer firefighters and EMS workers in both Monroe and Woodbury. I'd like to thank Supervisor Cardone for his efforts in lobbying the state government to expand this exemption to include volunteers who live in rental properties in our community. As Cardone pointed out at a recent Board of Education Meeting, the proposed tax exemption would not help recruit young volunteers because of my generation's ongoing financial challenges, which have resulted in many of us to be unable to purchase homes of our own.

That said, I am urging the Town Board to form a joint Task Force with the Town of Woodbury, the Village of Monroe, the Village of Woodbury, and Orange County.

This task force should investigate the conversion of using a volunteer ems and firefighter to paid ems and firefighter work.

After speaking with Orange County Deputy Commissioner of Fire Services Vinnie Tankasali, he stated it would cost roughly $20 million to convert to a paid model instead of a volunteer one.

The main challenge cited by Tankasali was that there are numerous private and public entities that provide emergency services within the Monroe-Woodbury area, and each of them would need to coordinate with the local municipalities and county in order to create an infrastructure that would collect and distribute the tax revenue in the form of payment to the EMS and firefighters.

That is what the task force should work on. They should then present their findings to the public, including the total cost of what would be required to move to a paid EMS and Fire services and replace the current volunteer one, as well as who needs to coordinate together in order to make this happen.

The reason for this is simple. As Mr. Cardone pointed out, the proposed tax exemptions would help retain current volunteers but not assist much in recruiting new volunteers.

My generation and younger generations face a worsening affordability crisis in America today, which is why so many of us are unable to volunteer. The lack of volunteerism is not because of laziness, apathy, or anything social. It is a direct response to the inability for us to live and operate in our modern world without working multiple jobs, which saps our time that would otherwise be spent volunteering.

So while I support and endorse the implementation of the tax deduction, I am urging the Town Board to seriously investigate and implement a long term solution that would make sure we have plenty of emergency service professionals when they are needed, and that those professionals will be able to afford to live and work in our community.”

During the meeting, Cardone dismissed the letter without acknowledging its contents by saying Orange County was already looking into doing something like this.

So, of course, being a journalist I asked Monroe’s Orange County Legislator, Peter Tuohy, who did not reply to a request for comment about the task force.

I then asked Deputy Fire Commissioner Vini Tankasali, who forwarded my question to Justin Rodriguez. Justin is the Director of Communications and Media Relations for Orange County.

Here’s what Justin told me:

The County is not investigating costs associated with moving to a paid model and has no plans for paid models to be funded by the County.

When I asked him if it was fair to say the county was not looking into such a task force, or moving to a paid model for the volunteer EMS and firefighters, he stated on behalf of Peter Cirigliano II , the Emergency Services Commissioner:

There are always ongoing conversations about how we can continue to improve volunteer firefighter/ems services in Orange County, however there is not currently a “task force” to investigate this change

So, Monroe Supervisor Tony Cardone was half-right.

The County has “talked” about looking into a paid model, but according to the County, there is nothing official in the works.

It’s a little frustrating that the Town Supervisor chose not to elaborate or address this himself.

I doubt many of his constituents have the time to ask around, let alone know who to ask, for an actual answer, concerning a looming local emergency.