Department of Public Safety Director Mitch Harrell is hopeful the pay raise being considered by county commission Tuesday will provide an incentive for experienced EMS employees to remain and new employees to come aboard. File photo by Terry Witt.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
When Levy County Commissioners meet on Tuesday they are expected to ratify a union contract that gives Emergency Medical Services workers and firefighters a $4,684 increase in their base pay over the next three years.
County commissioners also raised the pay of part-time EMS employees.
The raise comes at a time when EMS is down three staff paramedics from their usual roster of 21. EMS is also down six paramedics that serve as replacements for regular staff medics when they are out for vacation or gone on sick leave.
“That’s quite a bit. We are three below our minimum staffing and those that are used to cover sick leave and vacation. Those are not filled either,” said Public Safety Director Mitch Harrell.
Harrell was asked about staff complaints that the shortage of paramedics is forcing existing staff to work more mandatory shifts. He said he has no doubt that is one of the issues. He said there are other issues affecting the paramedic shortage including career aspirations, what they want to do professionally, as well as family reasons, other career paths, or a desire to go to fire school.
“There are a myriad of reasons, but I do believe that with some of our recent departures, that the additional work shifts have come to play in that,” Harrell said.
He said the impact of mandatory work shifts can’t be ignored when thinking about why there aren’t enough paramedics.
“It can’t-not be part of at least the thought process,” he said, admitting the sentence wasn’t perfect grammar.
“We’re also exploring possible incentives we can use to attract additional personnel to apply,” he said.
The staff shortage wasn’t the reason the county’s ambulance in Fanning Springs had to be shut down for about nine hours Sunday for lack of a paramedic, Harrell said.
“This was a result of someone on leave. It slipped through the cracks and wasn’t covered,” he said.
Harrell, a certified paramedic, used his truck to answer two non-life-threatening calls while the ambulance was shut down. His truck is equipped with a lifesaving device called an automated external defibrillator (AED) for restarting a failed heart. Harrell was functioning much like one of his three battalion captains when he ran calls in place of the ambulance. The battalion captains are certified paramedics who can assist a patient before the ambulance arrives or help an ambulance crew working on multiple patients.
Harrell explained why the ambulance was shut down Sunday. He said around mid-morning Sunday, a paramedic who had worked a normal 24-hour shift followed by a mandatory 24-hour second shift was due to get off work. He had worked 48 hours non-stop. Someone failed to schedule his replacement. EMS couldn’t find a paramedic to fill the slot.
“I came in and ran calls but the truck (ambulance) was out of service and I just came in to help out due to the fact that we might have units responding that were distances away. We were down to 6 units (ambulances) on the road. Our usual is seven,” Harrell said. “It’s not something we want to do. It happens from time to time; it could be because we have a vehicle that breaks down, things like that, or a truck goes out of service from time to time, but not because of staff or in the middle of the night if someone gets sick.”
Harrell said EMS is researching ways to revamp its recruitment process to attract applicants for paramedic and EMT positions. The idea is to provide incentives, such as training, to impress people looking at Levy County as a potential workplace.
He said the board also wanted to begin raising salaries as part of the effort to entice recruits and retain existing employees. He said some employees, depending on how much money they were earning, felt they took a hit when the county commission stopped paying for family health insurance coverage two years ago.
“Part of the change was so they could start increasing salaries in lieu of insurance costs and to stabilize insurance costs for taxpayers. The Spotlight article covered that and now they (the board) are starting to work on salaries. I’m hopeful the increase will be helpful in attracting folks. We are right next door to Marion and Alachua counties. They pay more than we do, but that’s part of it. Maybe we can find other incentives to attract personnel,” Harrell said.
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt August 13, 2020; Posted August 13, 2020
