Collingswood could privatize ambulance services to help overworked firefighters

At least one Collingswood commissioner is eager to move forward with privatizing the borough’s ambulance services after a $40,000 study said it would help its understaffed fire department.

Amy Henderson Riley, a member of Collingswood’s three-person board of commissioners, said the borough should follow through on its plan to outsource ambulance transports that started, and abruptly ended, last year after fellow Commissioner Jim Maley sued the borough over alleged ethics violations.

“What I aim to do, at least in the short-term, is privatization,” Henderson Riley said last week. “That’s not to say it’s a long-term solution. We’re not looking to sell out to the hospital system. We’re looking to cut costs for residents pulled in every direction.”

In December, Henderson Riley and Mayor Daniela Solano-Ward, also a commissioner, voted to approve a one-year contract with Virtua Health to use the hospital system’s ambulance services.

The deal, at no direct cost to the borough, would have allowed Virtua to bill patients who ride an ambulance. Collingswood made about $407,000 from ambulance billing last year, according to its 2026 budget, and it’s unclear exactly how much they spent to keep the EMS program running.

EMS is currently handled by Collingswood’s 19-person fire team, which also manages fire emergencies across the 14,000-resident borough and parts of Haddon Township.

The Virtua contract was voided when Maley, who voted against the agreement, sued, alleging that Solano-Ward’s vote was a conflict of interest because her husband works for Virtua. The borough settled the lawsuit and agreed that Solano-Ward should recuse herself from future EMS matters.

If Collingswood tries to outsource ambulance transport again, it wouldn’t be the first local municipality to successfully privatize EMS, according to Collingswood Fire Chief Geoffrey Joyce. For instance, Camden uses Cooper Health ambulances, Gloucester Township and Pine Hill each use Inspira Health, and Gloucester City uses Virtua.

The commissioners haven’t moved toward privatizing again since the borough settled Maley’s lawsuit in January. Henderson Riley said it would take time to put together a request to send out to bid, which would need to be reviewed by lawyers first.

With Maley still not sold on privatizing and Solano-Ward’s vote out of the running, the path toward privatization might be difficult. Commissioners don’t reconvene until Oct. 5, and Henderson Riley said Thursday she wasn’t sure how a vote would work for EMS without the mayor able to pitch in.

Plus, key officials think there’s a better option for Collingswood’s firefighters that could take years to develop.

Collingswood contracted Manitou, a private public safety consulting firm, in June to conduct a four-month study examining whether the borough should privatize ambulance services or hire more firefighters to give the department some relief.

Borough officials have expressed concern that the fire department, which has lost all its part-timers in recent years and responds to about 4,000 annual calls, doesn’t have the capacity to respond with a safe, and mentally well, team of firefighters.

The study, presented at a public meeting on Sept. 8, was a condition of settling Maley’s lawsuit. The combined cost of legal fees and the study was about $70,000 in taxpayer funds, according to Henderson Riley.

Charles Jennings, a principal at Manitou, said at the meeting that having no part-time staff has led to an increase in hours for firefighters, and 80% of surveyed staff said they’re working too much overtime. Firefighters also reported that the “trajectory of [the] job is getting worse.” Nearly half of current employees said they are considering leaving the Collingswood Fire Department.

Jennings said privatizing would bring the borough improvements, including cutting costs, more training time for firefighters, and a more competitive workplace. He said outsourcing would make it less likely that firefighters end up with too few staff on an engine to safely respond to emergencies.

The alternative option — hiring three more firefighters — would cost Collingswood $350,000 and wouldn’t fix the understaffing issue when personnel call out, Jennings said.

Joyce, the fire chief, said he’s seen the department change significantly over his 24-year career. His hiring in 2002 was part of Collingswood’s effort to take over EMS from a private contractor. The borough had privatized after struggling to respond to emergencies on its own.

Growing responsibilities for firefighters have left the community in need of help again, he noted.

“If at the start of my career you told me I would one day have to receive training on weapons of mass destruction, active shooter threat response, and all of the other facets of emergency response that this career now demands aside from response to fires, I would have never believed you,” Joyce said in an email.

With a long list of fire departments across Camden County’s 37 municipalities, Jennings said the area is “ripe” for consolidation.

That, too, is Joyce’s ideal outcome. He calls regionalization, which would bring nearby fire departments under one, larger roof, “the most equitable solution.”

“My dream is that irrespective of whatever zip code you live in, or the wealth or lack thereof in your community, as a resident you should know that when you call 9-1-1 that the emergency services are going to arrive quickly and fix whatever your problem is efficiently without delay,” Joyce said.

Other departments in the Philly area have made moves to regionalize their fire and ambulance services in recent months, including in Kennett Square and Delaware County.

Solano-Ward, who became a commissioner in May 2025 alongside Henderson Riley, said that strategy would reduce expenses, but it would take a lot of time.

It took Haddon Heights 20 years to regionalize among three municipalities, she said. Plus, there’s no guarantee that Collingswood wouldn’t get the short end of the stick.

“Everyone loves the idea as long as our staff remain, [and] our house is the main house. But guess what?” Solano-Ward said. “We can’t all have that.”

Henderson Riley, though, said regionalization could happen sooner than people think. She said she’s in early talks with officials from three other nearby municipalities, which she declined to name, with interest in consolidation. As healthcare and other affiliated costs rise, she said Collingswood has to move outside the box.

“If you’re interested in joining us, talk to us,” she said. “Let’s have everybody at the table together.”

Maley, who voted with his fellow commissioners to authorize a request for private ambulance proposals last September, said he wants the borough to keep control of its EMS services and has spoken out against privatization.

Earlier this month, he voiced concerns about losing the revenue that the medical services bring in annually.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea that a company that’s very interested in the bottom line would run our EMS,” Maley said at the public meeting.

Henderson Riley said Thursday that the financial impact is more complicated. By privatizing, Collingswood wouldn’t have to pay more than $150,000 in overtime wages for its firefighters, or pay a third-party provider more than $30,000 to handle ambulance billing, as it does now. The borough could also sell some of its EMS equipment, Henderson Riley said, and preserve the mental health of overworked employees along the way.

“These men and their mental health are critical,” she said.

Maley also said the study’s results should’ve been delayed due to “an internal investigation” into a fire incident in Collingswood this year.

Maley, Henderson Riley, and Joyce declined to give details on the investigation, but the borough approved Andrea Wyatt, a municipal lawyer based in Toms River, as special counsel to investigate back in June.

The Retrospect news organization reported that the incident in question occurred in April, when the department didn’t have enough staff to transport a 63-year-old injured resident to the hospital and handle a house fire at the same time.

Henderson Riley said last week that the investigation has “nothing to do” with Jennings’ work, and she doesn’t know why Maley would delay the results based on the investigation.

Maley declined to explain his thought process until the investigation concludes.

Some attendees spoke out against the delay in privatizing at the public meeting. Donna Helmes, a Collingswood resident, said it’s disappointing that taxpayers paid for an outside source to tell officials to do the same thing they had already voted for with Virtua.

“I am not wealthy. I don’t want to raise my taxes any more, but I feel like these people will run into my house when it’s on fire to save me and my family, so I want them to be as well-resourced as possible,” Helmes said. “And I think we could have done this last year. It’s very upsetting that we’re still arguing this.”