Bottom of the salary barrel 

To the editor:

A 24-percent pay hike won't achieve pay parity for the FDNY's EMTs. The City Council has proposed such a raise for the FY 2026 city budget stating, "While EMS workers perform essential frontline roles, they continue to earn significantly less than firefighters, despite working under similarly demanding and hazardous conditions." Laboring under a contract that expired almost three years ago, an EMT with 5 1⁄2 years on the job earns a yearly salary of $59,534.  

A couple of examples demonstrate why the Council's idea does not bring EMT pay anywhere near parity.  

First, except for EMTs, sanitation workers, who collect our trash, are the city's lowest-paid workers among the uniform titles (the others being corrections officers, police officers and firefighters). The Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association’s contract stipulates that the current base pay for a sanitation worker, with 5 1⁄2 years on the job, will be $92,093 a year, increasing to $99,129 by the end of 2026.  

Secondly, although EMTs are "first responders" just as firefighters and police officers, after 5½ years on the job, a firefighter's base salary is $105,146, or almost $46,000 more than an EMT’s.

After a 24-percent increase, an EMT's base pay will go to $73,822. With gaps in pay so enormous, 24 percent still leaves our EMTs earning $25,000 less a year than our trash collectors, and nowhere near parity with our firefighters.

Helen Northmore