Newly minted Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore made a fiery pitch for EMS pay parity during a “State of the FDNY” breakfast, claiming it was time EMS is embraced “as an equal in the Fire Department and in the first responder community.”
“EMS is the lowest-paid first responders in the city, and that is unacceptable,” Bonsignore said at Thursday’s breakfast, which was sponsored by the FDNY Foundation. “The people staffing the ambulances deserve to be able save the lives that need them and still support their families in the city that they love.”
“We have to let them know that they are also heroes,” she said.
Bonsignore, the first openly gay person picked to lead the department in its 160-year history, spent three decades as a city “Street Doctor” with the FDNY. In her 31-year career, she rose to chief of the EMS division, holding the top post for three years before retiring in 2022.
Her tenure as EMS chief overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic, a period that saw the department’s EMTs and paramedics under tremendous strain.
She has no say over contract negotiations between City Hall and the unions representing city emergency medical technicians, paramedics and officers, but said the low pay has led to concerns about recruitment and retention.
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Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News An FDNY EMT performs CPR on a man after he allegedly jumped from the roof of a building on Washington St. in Manhattan on Saturday, December 14, 2019. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
Most of the 911 calls directed to the FDNY are for medical emergencies, so EMTs and paramedics are needed more now than ever, she said.
“Our call volume is exploding, we are up to over 2 million calls collectively in the Fire Department, in which 1.6 million are for medical emergencies. Everyone (in the FDNY) is in the game on handling that,” she said.
Currently, an EMT coming out of the EMS Academy starts at a salary of $39,386, union officials said. After about five years, their salary increases to $59,000. By comparison, an FDNY firefighter earns $45,196 right out of the FDNY Academy and can earn around $110,000 after five years.
Contract bargaining sessions between EMS unions and City Hall are expected to continue later this month, members said.
In her address to the FDNY Foundation, Bonsignore also said the department needs to focus on upgrading its aging infrastructure.
“We have to keep up with the city that is growing around us,” she said. “The FDNY is 160 years old and some of our buildings are 100-plus years old. Our infrastructure is not what it used to be, and we have to make sure that our equipment and facilities and vehicles — everything that keep our rescuers moving — are updated and ready for the next 10, 20, 30 years.”
Still, she noted, “If we got evicted (from these facilities) on the same day, we would still be the FDNY.”
Past Fire commissioners have always supported EMS’ bid for equal pay, but few rarely spoke out on the subject since they have no control as to what happens at the bargaining table.
“Local 2507 appreciates the Fire Commissioner’s sentiment, which also matches that of former Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, that the EMS pay parity issue should have been addressed decades ago,” Oren Barzilay, the president of Local 2507 said. “This year marks the 30th anniversary of the FDNY and EMS merger, and our men and women are severely struggling, which is reflected in our staffing shortages and response times.”
An FDNY spokeswoman said Bonsignore has always been a champion for EMS pay parity, which didn’t change when Mayor Mamdani named her Fire commissioner.
“We are modernizing our technology, our equipment and our fleet, but the most critical piece of FDNY infrastructure is our people,” the spokeswoman said. “We are losing seasoned paramedics and EMTs to other career paths and the private sector because the current pay scale is unsustainable.”
“While the Fire commissioner does not sit at the bargaining table for contract negotiations, we cannot talk about recruitment and retention while ignoring compensation levels,” she said. “I hope a resolution can be reached soon.”
