Harford County is blessed with volunteer fire companies that respond at a moment’s notice to life and death emergencies. When our residents need them most, these dedicated and highly trained first responders answer the call. We cannot thank them enough for their service.

Shortly after I came into office in December 2022, I was advised by our emergency service volunteers and county emergency staff that while the volunteer fire services remained viable, it was no longer feasible for the Harford County Volunteer Fire EMS Foundation to provide emergency medical services. Although the county and our EMS volunteers understood that it was only a matter of time before the county would have to take over this responsibility, it had been expected that the transition would take several years. Instead, the immense strains on the volunteers in a COVID and post-COVID world dictated that the change move forward immediately.

This rapid transition from volunteer service to paid county service required establishing 17 medic units, including hiring 108 professional paramedics/EMTs, to respond 24/7 countywide. We had to quickly staff, equip and purchase ambulances, and find a way to pay for it all, in order to continue providing the high-quality care our residents expect and deserve.

Most residents are probably unaware of this massive shift in vital services, and that’s actually good news. Our goal all along has been to work closely with our public safety partners to ensure a seamless transition, and thanks to incredible teamwork by all involved that mission was accomplished. In fact, we have also been able to reduce average response times for ambulances in medical emergencies.

While all this was going on, the number of bills for service we had to process spiked as we went from having just three county ambulance crews to 17, and this led to a delay in sending bills out for payment. This was not a surprise because before bills can go out, they must be reviewed by a licensed paramedic.

Paramedics are in short supply nationwide, and we decided to place the first paramedics we were able to hire on ambulance crews instead of sitting them in offices reviewing bills. We have since been able to hire enough paramedics to work through the backlog and by the end of June all the bills will have gone out.

It is unfortunate that some elected officials have tried to politicize this temporary delay with sensationalized and highly misleading news releases and social media posts that leave out these facts. To set the record straight, the County Council’s auditor did not discover these challenges. During one of our periodic meetings with the auditor, I personally informed her of the backlog, the measures we were undertaking to resolve it, and invited her to offer any insights or suggestions.

I am proud of the dedicated professionals across my administration who worked together so successfully to meet this serious, unexpected challenge. It is most unfortunate that their hard work and dedication have attracted so little recognition. I, for one, am grateful for the incredible cooperation from our county volunteers and for the efforts of our county staff in putting 17 very high-quality medic units in service throughout Harford County and, on behalf of the citizens we serve, I thank them all.

Bob Cassilly, Harford County executive