HARRISBURG — The silence that filled the state Capitol Rotunda for several minutes around midday Monday was interrupted 77 times by the reading of a name and the tolling of a bell, as Pennsylvania remembered 77 EMS providers who died over a period of decades while doing their jobs.

Penn Hills EMS paramedic Nicholas Theofolis’ name was one of them. Theofolis, 23, died Nov. 27 when the ambulance he was driving was involved in a multi-vehicle crash in Shadyside.

“He was very intelligent, articulate and frankly, wise beyond his years,” Penn Hills Mayor Pauline Calabrese said in an interview Monday. Ms. Calabrese said Theofolis, who also was an Eagle Scout, had “done more in community service in his young life than many people twice his age.” His funeral, she said, was “the largest funeral in Penn Hills in recent history.”

That the solemn ceremony occurred on the 22nd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack was only coincidence, said Doug Garretson, chairman of the Pennsylvania EMS Provider Foundation and a Pittsburgh resident. He said the EMS community each year remembers its fallen on the Monday after Labor Day.

A few hours after the ceremony, a Senate committee held a hearing on funding for Pennsylvania’s 911 system. The law that currently provides most of the money via a $1.65-per-month fee on the bills of cell phone users is due to expire in January.

Mr. Garretson said politics was not a part of the Monday remembrance. At the same time, though, “EMS in the state, and nationally, is in a state of crisis,” he said, brought about by a lack of funding and municipalities’ inability to pick up the slack.

Speaking to the crowd in the Rotunda, Mr. Garretson paraphrased a letter written by President Abraham Lincoln to a mother believed to have lost five sons in the Civil War. Mr. Garretson said those close to the fallen EMS providers “can carry with them the solemn pride of having made such a costly sacrifice” for public service.

Debra Bogen, the state’s acting secretary of health and former director of the Allegheny County Health Department, called the ceremony a beautiful remembrance. Rep. Mark Gillen, R-Berks and the top Republican on the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, said EMS providers face many roadblocks and that the ceremony honored the “the courage that these providers offer the community.”

The hearing before the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee focused on funding for the 911 system as well as the potential for cost savings.

The monthly cell phone fee has been at $1.65 a month for eight years. In his March budget address, Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed increasing that fee to $1.97 a month, and a bill to carry out that proposed increase passed the House and is awaiting action in a Senate committee.

Jeffrey Boyle, the executive deputy director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, said Monday that the state’s 911 system handles an average of one call every two seconds, going through one of 61 call centers around the state. They are required to operate around the clock, 365 days a year, and Mr. Boyle said about 500 of the 2,500 staff positions in the system currently are vacant.

Mr. Boyle said costs not covered by the $1.65 monthly cell phone fee end up being covered by county property taxes or other local sources. In 2022, Mr. Boyle said, counties covered $89 million in 911 system costs.

If the law expires without reauthorization, the state would have no statutory authority to levy it. In that case, Mr. Boyle said, all costs would shift to county property taxes.

Mike Pries, a Dauphin County commissioner and a leader of counties’ efforts on emergency affairs, said 911 funding is a top priority. He said counties would prefer the fee be set at $2.30 a month with a built-in increase of 15 cents a year over a five-year period to cover inflation.

“We need the General Assembly and the governor to act now,” Mr. Pries said. “We cannot delay this reauthorization.”

Jake Lestock, director of state legislative affairs for the wireless industry group CTIA, said lawmakers should reauthorize the current law for a year without increasing the fee so the issue can get more study.

Should the fee be increased to $1.97 a month, Mr. Lestock said, Pennsylvania consumers will pay the second-highest 911 fee in the nation. Already, he said, state consumers are paying $100 million more than those in any other state.

Ford Turner: fturner@post-gazette.com 

First Published: September 11, 2023, 8:29 p.m.
Updated: September 12, 2023, 8:59 p.m.