{"id":297388,"date":"2026-07-16T05:21:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T05:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/297388\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T05:21:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T05:21:22","slug":"report-highlights-staten-island-paramedics-struggle-making-ends-meet-on-nyc-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/297388\/","title":{"rendered":"Report highlights Staten Island paramedic\u2019s struggle making ends meet on NYC pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 The New York Times<\/a> used a Staten Island emergency medical technician\u2019s story Wednesday to highlight the financial struggles of serving in the FDNY\u2019s emergency medical services.<\/p>\n

Taysha Soto earns about $56,000 a year before overtime, taking home about $1,500 every two weeks. She told the broadsheet the paltry pay has her struggling to stay afloat with two toddlers and picking up house cleaning jobs in her off time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be like that,\u201d Soto told the Times. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have to be overworking yourself at one job \u2014 and then, even doing overtime, you have to go and still do something else to make money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soto is far from alone in the financial hardship that comes with a job in New York City emergency medical services. Base salary for an FDNY EMT tops out around $59,000 after five years, while firefighters with the same years of service receive a base salary around $110,000.<\/p>\n

Calls for pay parity between the two jobs have grown in recent years, particularly as emergency medical service professionals take on the bulk of 911 responses. <\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s appointment of FDNY Commissioner Lilian Bonsignore was a particularly hopeful sign for proponents of pay parity after she served 31 years in the city\u2019s emergency medical services.<\/p>\n

At a June City Council budget hearing, Bonsignore identified herself as a supporter of pay parity, but made clear that her role as commissioner did not include advocacy around that issue. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been pretty verbal about supporting EMS pay parity, and I do think it\u2019s one of those things that need to happen sooner rather than later,\u201d the commissioner said. \u201cWe want to have a robust, sustainable, EMS system. So as far as the details go of what that\u2019s going to look like, that I would have to defer to [the Office of Labor Relations].\u201d<\/p>\n

That office, led by Commissioner Renee Campion, has been in years of negotiations with the emergency medical services unions, which have been without contracts since 2022.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has made affordability in the five boroughs a cornerstone of his administration, but has yet to take up the mantle of pay parity for emergency medical services workers.<\/p>\n

The recently passed $126 billion budget, including $2.6 billion for the FDNY, drew some criticism from the mayor\u2019s detractors for its failure to address pay parity, including from Assemblymember Michael Novakhov, a conservative representing part of South Brooklyn<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Slower 911 response times over the past decade have also fueled calls for pay parity as a way to attract and retain more talent for the city\u2019s emergency medical services. <\/p>\n

A challenge in addressing the low pay for the city\u2019s emergency medical services has been government concerns about pattern bargaining, with other unions likely to look for raises of their own after a bump for paramedics and emergency medical technicians. <\/p>\n

At a June 10 City Council budget hearing, Michael Greco \u2014 president of Local 2507, the union representing FDNY emergency medical technicians, paramedics and fire inspectors \u2014 warned elected officials about the dangers of their continued refusal to bring pay parity, according to a report from AMNY<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is no longer whether New York City can afford to invest in EMS; the question is: how much longer can New Yorkers afford for the city not to?\u201d Greco said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 The New York Times used a Staten Island emergency medical technician\u2019s story Wednesday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-297388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}