FORWARD TWP — Although the township has severed its relationship with Quality EMS, township officials are assuring residents in Quality’s coverage area that they should not expect any loss of service.

“With all the different services available and working together, we think our township will be fine, even without Quality,” said township Supervisor Susan Oliver-Stough during a meeting Thursday, Sept. 10.

The township is working with Butler County Emergency Services on a new coverage map which will divide the households in Quality EMS’ current coverage area between Forward Township’s two remaining EMS providers: Butler Ambulance Service and Harmony EMS.

The township is also served by the volunteer fire companies of Callery, Connoquenessing and Evans City. Both Callery and Evans City are certified for “quick response service,” which can provide medical service to patients in the time before an ambulance arrives.

“We've met extensively with Harmony and we've met extensively with Butler, and we’ve looked at response times from different stations,” said township manager Tom Hartwig. “Everybody, and most importantly (Steve) Bicehouse (Butler County director of emergency services), are satisfied that this is more than doable.”

Hartwig said the township and Butler County Emergency Services are close to finalizing a map of the new service areas and releasing it to residents.

“We will produce the map once 911 finishes reviewing it and returns it to us,” Hartwig said.

The board of supervisors announced at its Aug. 13 meeting that the township would cut ties with Quality EMS, effective Oct. 1. The change came as a result of Quality requesting that the township pay $35 for each household that the agency covers — 446 in Forward Township — to support its operations.

“They basically said, ‘Here’s the money you’ve got to pay us, otherwise we really don’t want to work with you guys,’” Oliver-Stough said. “And we said, ‘OK, we don’t want to work with you either.’”

Forward Township residents who hold a subscription to Quality EMS service will still have their subscriptions honored until their expiration date.

“It’s our understanding that they will not renew those subscriptions when they expire,” Hartwig said.