BELMAR — Borough officials, during a workshop presentation at the council’s March 11 meeting, announced that borough’s emergency medical services (EMS) will go from a four-town to a two-town program.
The borough had previously been involved with the South Monmouth Emergency Medical Services (SMEMS) shared service agreement, which expired at the end of 2024 and encompassed the local municipalities of Belmar, Lake Como, Sea Girt and Manasquan. The four municipalities funded the shared service of the SMEMS that was made up of paid professionals from the Borough of Belmar, who served as the host organization in the service agreement.
The Belmar EMS will now go back to being a two-town program, for Belmar and Lake Como, for a projected cost of $144 a year per ratable property, according to the presentation.
“The taxpayers will be paying the exact same, or less — our goal is for less,” Robert DeMartin, director of EMS for the Borough of Belmar, said. “That does involve a lot of work from us, looking at our volume and looking at how the program runs to figure out how we can make this work the best.”
DeMartin said that he has been working very closely with Chief Financial Officer Lorraine Carafa, Business Administrator Kevin Kane, Police Chief Tina Scott and other officials “to talk about how to get a budget that’s going to be effective, conservative and able to answer the calls and do everything that we need to do.”
“In the past months, the boroughs of Belmar and Lake Como have worked diligently to create a budget that should spend less money than in years past,” according to the presentation.
“We’re looking to spend less than what we did last year,” DeMartin said. Though he couldn’t provide the cost for EMS services from last year, he said that “we were able to shrink that down dramatically.”
He said they’ve also started a “cost-sharing analysis” between Belmar and Lake Como “to be the most fair that we can.”
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