The council’s introduced budget includes money to hire a third full-time emergency medical technician, eliminating the use of part-time EMTs.

Paid EMTs cover the borough Monday through Friday between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The Volunteer First Aid Squad is responsible after 6 p.m. and weekends.

Three members of the paid Edgewater Fire Department handled the daytime emergency medical service originally, Borough Administrator Greg Franz said. The Department is now all volunteers.

"Through attrition and retirement it was down to the last three paid firefighters," Franz said. "So the borough decided to create an emergency medical division within the Edgewater Police Department."

There are two full-time EMTs and a dozen part-time EMTs. Franz said most Bergen County towns have a similar setup and sometimes use office staff or Department of Public Works employees trained as EMTs.

"There’s a significant turnover in EMTs because of the nature of the position," Franz said. "If a neighboring town offers a $1 more then most of the part-timers will gravitate to those towns."

The shortage of reliable part-time EMTs put a strain on the police department because officers needed to cover the hours when no part-timers were available. Franz said Police Chief Donald Martin suggested hiring a third full-timer.

"You just have to do the math," Martin said. "12 hours a day, five days a week, that’s two EMTs for 120 hours a week."

He said the third EMT eliminates scheduling problems since each can work 40 hours a week.

Full-time EMTs earn approximately $30,000 with health benefits, Franz said. The part-timers earned between $12 and $15 an hour.

Martin said that when firefighters acted as EMTs they earned more than $100,000 than EMTs make so it’s a good savings.

The council’s new budget was introduced Sept. 15 and will be adopted later this year.