New Jersey is facing a critical shortage of volunteer emergency responders.

In Monmouth County, the problem has gotten so bad, the area ranks as having one of the worst response times in the state.

Now the sheriff's office and County Board of Commissioners are launching a program to address the problem, putting millions of dollars behind new equipment and paid responders to help out the towns that need it most.

Ted Goldberg reports.

And that's incredibly exciting to me, and that's something I really wanted to be a part of.

Incredibly fortunate to be a part of.

Rob McLaughlin is part of a new EMS operation in Monmouth County.

The sheriff's office is hiring around 40 EMT to cut down on the county's response time for 911 calls.

Monmouth County has some of the longest average wait times in the state.

The resources are incredibly limited.

COVID was incredibly stressful not only for our paid professionals, but also our volunteer professionals.

It was hard for people to get out and volunteer and willingly do something that could put them in danger, and it sucked.

We suffered a lot for it.

We all know, unfortunately, the hours it takes now for training and we all know, unfortunately, with family matters and dual income jobs, that volunteerism has become a little bit more difficult in our communities.

Lawmakers like Senator Vin Gopal have proposed laws to entice people to volunteer, but leaders say it's been hard to give volunteer squads the numbers they need.

This is really exciting.

It's something that we we were we knew it was going to take time to do.

I will say with the sheriff's, I guess, aggressive style here became a little quicker than we thought.

The department responded to its first 911 call on Monday morning in Oakhurst.

Their response time?

21 seconds.

A high bar to set and a tougher one to match going forward.

But reducing waiting times is the whole idea behind this new department.

It will grow over the next months and years to come.

But again, all with the goal in mind to assist our volunteers work side by side with our partners and be sure that we deploy and cut the response times down so that we're not the lower third in the state of New Jersey.

So that we are in the upper tier where Monmouth County belongs.

We're only going to get better from here.

We're only going to keep helping, keep improving and provide the absolute best service for the taxpayers of Monmouth County.

While 21 seconds is ambitious.

Leaders are encouraged so far.

Sit and fall City Councilman John Manginelli says 911 calls aren't always answered with immediate service.

It was sporadic.

Sometimes it was good and sometimes it just wasn't.

So you got to a liability issue there.

I think it's more much more efficient now.

Manginelli says there was one small hitch to the sheriff led department.

Local leaders feeling like a county wide EMS operation might interfere with local EMS squads.

This is not coming in and taking over anybody's programs.

This is here to supplement the programs.

It's here to assure that Monmouth County residents are getting an ambulance in a timely manner.

We're here to help.

We are here to supplement.

We're not taking any anything away from anyone.

But getting these resources on the road takes pressure off departments that are overtaxed, overworked volunteer squads.

Sheriff Shaun Golden says the department could grow in the future, giving more help to volunteer squads across the 53 municipalities.

County wide in Freehold.

I'm Ted Goldberg.

NJ Spotlight News.