STRATFORD — Full-time paramedic service is set to debut in town in a few weeks, but not everyone thinks it's the right prescription for improving emergency-medical care.

Some of the town's firefighters contend they could provide the same care as the new emergency medical service, but at a lower cost to the town.

"They say it would cost the town too much money" to train firefighters as the paramedic service, fire Lt. Jack Conway said Tuesday. "Our plan was a better plan, and it would cost the town less money."

Stratford International Association of Firefighters Local No. 998 said in a statement the department has more than 50 firefighters trained as emergency medical technicians and 10 as paramedics. "At the Fire Department, we already have these people on staff and our proposal would cost $73,000 less a year to run," the statement reads. "In a time of fiscal crisis and responsibility, would it not make sense to use personnel that are already on staff and trained?"

A full-time paramedic service earlier this year won the backing of the Town Council, with council members of both parties calling it a priority to buttress the volunteer ambulance corps in town.

The council approved $1.25 million for emergency medical services for the 2005-06 fiscal year, an increase of $460,000 from the previous year. Councilman Gavin B. Forrester III, D-3, chairman of the EMS Funding Commission and a volunteer technician, said the full-time force is expected to begin the first week of August. In the absence of full-time paramedic coverage, the town has had contracts with Nelson Ambulance and American Medical Response to fill gaps in coverage. The new full-time staff will work in unison with the volunteer technicians and be based at Police Department headquarters.

Forrester said that hiring a team of four technicians who are not firefighters should save the town money in the long run.

"From what [acting Finance Director Patti-Lynn Ryan] told me, because of differences in the pension program, we would end up saving the town money down the line," he said. "When you have someone who is both a firefighter and paramedic, you end up creating a whole new class of firefighters."

Forrester also pointed out that the Fire Department's representative voted in favor of the full-time EMS proposal at a funding committee meeting. The difference in the levels of care that can be provided by trained firefighters and the paramedics are set by union contracts and state regulations, Forrester said.

Frank Washkuch Jr., who covers Stratford, can be reached at 330-6287.