BERNE — The future of EMS in the town of Berne is still undecided as Supervisor Dennis Palow waits to negotiate the pricing of the Albany County Sheriff's EMS program with county officials.

Berne, like many of the towns surrounding it, has relied on county ambulances for two decades as the only public program that offers advanced life support — a protocol designed to help patients who are in critical condition survive on their way to a hospital. 

Palow told The Enterprise this week in a statement that was also published online that the county is asking the town for $264,000, and that the town should pay less because it also uses the taxpayer-funded Helderberg Ambulance, the last local volunteer squad on the Hill. 

Helderberg Ambulance members are not certified for ALS, and the group is still pressured by the same difficult recruitment conditions — the average age of volunteers was 71 in 2021, and new volunteers are hard to find — that have forced other programs to shut down. 

Palow is not the only town leader to gripe about the cost of county EMS, which was $200,000 for Berne this year, though he is the only one to threaten to cut service. 

At least eight supervisors in and around The Enterprise coverage area signed onto a letter last year that asked the county to establish a special tax district so that the county could get the necessary funding from residents directly rather than making towns incorporate that expense into their budgets, raising their own tax rates.  

That solution is impossible without the state first passing legislation to allow it, however. 

Westerlo Supervisor Matt Kryzak told The Enterprise at the time that, although the cost was difficult to bear when it jumped 30 percent for Westerlo this year as the sheriff hoped to provide better compensation to attract and retain recruits, he understood why it was a necessary expense in the end. 

“My only take is maybe a slower rollout,” Kryzk said. “But I understand sometimes you have to take drastic measures to make things work.”

Whether a drastic measure will work for Palow is unclear. 

He told The Enterprise last week that the county will essentially be forced to continue serving the town since it’s the only program offering ALS, but Sheriff Craig Apple responded by saying he would recommend that the county withhold county sales tax from Berne to make up for the funding gap.

Like the price of county EMS, county sales tax is based on population. 

Palow had taken the county ambulance funding out of his 2025 budget after a first draft, which included the expense, that would have raised taxes 19 percent prompted an outcry from residents, who already had their taxes raised 752 percent for this year. 

Removing the ambulance funding was also controversial, with residents complaining online about the factors that likely contributed to the present jam — particularly spending down what had been a large fund balance in order to lower taxes for a couple of years — while worrying about what loss of service might mean. 

Albany County Legislator Chris Smith, a Conservative who owns the popular restaurant Maple on the Lake in Berne, told The Enterprise last week that he was “very concerned” about the decision to withhold county ambulance funding. 

“I have to use ambulance service at my restaurant 5 to 10 times a year and the county paramedic is the first person there 50% of the time,” he wrote in an email. “I’m scared what will happen if nobody shows up next time.”

An online petition started by former Berne Town Board member Joe Martin — who resigned with two others out of frustration with Palow’s leadership — currently has 109 signatures. 

“Our volunteer ambulance provides basic life support services, however if someone needs advanced life support, you want a paramedic on board who can provide more advanced intervention,” the petition reads in part. “As a community we need to immediately demand that the budget is modified to fund the paramedic services!”

Governor update

Palow will be able to enact the town’s 2025 budget on his own since the town board still lacks a quorum after Martin and two other board members — all five members were backed by the GOP — resigned in August. 

The Enterprise continues to inquire regularly with the governor’s office about the appointment-making process but has not heard back. 

Palow, a Republican, has told The Enterprise that he requested that the governor appoint former town board member and former town Clerk Anita Clayton — a Democrat, but nevertheless a close ally of Palow’s who ran on the Republican line in 2021 — to the board.

The Berne Democratic Committee told The Enterprise in a statement this week that it had submitted three names to the governor’s office over two months ago, but, like Palow, has not heard from the office despite requests for an update. 

“We are extremely concerned for our town. Our immediate concern is that our town has no operational board,” the statement said. “The implications of this are far-reaching.”

Albany County Republican Chairman Jim McGaughn told The Enterprise that he also has not heard from the governor’s office. 

“I don’t know if she’s going to be fair and work with us or if she’s going to go ahead and do her own thing,” he said.