For weeks now, municipal leaders in 18 towns and the brass at a non-profit emergency dispatch center in New Haven have been debating how to keep the center afloat. The sprawling discussion centers around how the service is paid for, and whether the funding method favors smaller towns over large cities.
On Wednesday the people directly affected by the budget battle spoke out.
People such as Amy Brown, a mom from Ansonia who started working as a dispatcher at South Central Connecticut Regional Emergency Communications System in New Haven nine years ago.
Brown, and five other dispatchers, were laid off Monday, a cost-cutting measure at CMED New Haven.“I was called Monday morning, and I was told not to come to work,” Brown said. “I was no longer employed. There was no notice. There was no severance package. If anyone thinks there were these huge payments given to us, there was nothing. We received nothing.”
CMED New Haven plays an important role in lower Valley emergency medical services. They dispatch both the Derby fire department and ambulance service, along with ambulances in Ansonia, Shelton and the paramedics working for Valley Emergency Medical Services.
All those local groups have back-up plans in place in the event that CMED New Haven dissolves, something that could very well happen this summer, the way things are going.
Click here for a previous Valley Indy story on this issue.
CMED New Haven is based in New Haven. It serves — and is funded by — Ansonia, Bethany, Branford, Derby, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Meriden, Milford, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Shelton, Wallingford, West Haven and Woodbridge, according to its website.
But union officials said CMED New Haven is on its last legs after several of the larger CMED municipalities have threatened to pull out of the group, including the City of New Haven.
The larger municipalities have argued there are more cost-effective ways to pay for the services provided by CMED, and New Haven officials in particular have argued they subsidize the smaller towns that use CMED, according to the New Haven Register.
But Brown, the dispatcher from Ansonia, was among about 30 people — past CMED employees and a bevy of union officials from the region — who staged a noontime protest outside New Haven City Hall on Church Street Wednesday.
Their story was different. They said the City of New Haven is trying to kill CMED and take the emergency dispatch service private. There’s money to be made in emergency dispatch, they said, so why stick with a small non-profit funded by the participating towns?
It’s an accusation New Haven Mayor Toni Harp’s administration denies. The administration says CMED New Haven’s funding has been questioned for years and that taxpayers in New Haven are simply paying too much for what CMED delivers.
The protesters, led by Joseph Mayhew, a political coordinator with the Communication Workers of America AFL-CIO Local 1103, said privatizing the service isn’t in the public’s interest, because private companies keep secrets, and aren’t subject to the state’s Freedom of Information laws.
The protestors outside city hall chanted “Keep New Haven safe.” They carried signs proclaiming “public safety is not for sale.” And they said flat-out that CMED’s demise would put New Haven residents’ lives at risk.
Laurence Grotheer, Harp’s spokesman, said the discussion over how CMED is funded has been ongoing for years, and was started under Mayor John DeStefano, who preceded Harp.
The public is not at risk, even if CMED New Haven goes away, Grotheer said.
As it stands, New Haven is still using CMED.
“This is about restructuring CMED. In none of this, is public safety compromised. This is about efficiencies and restructuring the cost share of CMED,” Grotheer said.
The restructuring started on Friday, June 27 when the CMED New Haven Board of Directors (town leaders who fund it) voted on a one-month budget that will keep it afloat through July. By June 30, six dispatchers were unemployed.
The dispatch service used to employ four people on day shifts, three on evenings, and two on overnights. Now it’s two per shift, with reduced workloads.
Union officials and the laid-off employees said CMED New Haven’s executive director resigned shortly after Friday’s vote.
Click here to read a column from Derby fire and ambulance about how they are dealing with the CMED layoffs.
