It’s becoming a tight year for the DeKalb County Commission’s Budget Committee, with many department requests finding themselves on the chopping block. DeKalb EMS is seeing some of its request fall to the side, but some department employees may be finding some extra duties as MEs.
EMS Director Hoyte Hale had previously asked the budget committee to fund four new EMS employees, to fully staff a 24/7 crew at the Liberty Fire Station. Hale had also made a request for funds to add on to the Liberty Fire Hall to provide sleeping quarters for the proposed crew.
But in a tight year with the commission looking at a proposed property tax increase and possible wheel tax, the committee asked Director Hale to rework his budget for re-submission, without the proposed four new positions.
During his budget presentation Thursday, May 9, Director Hale’s new proposed budget, after removing proposed funding for four new employees, was reduced from $911,787 to $771,406 for the year. Part-time pay has been increased from $135,000 this year to $140,000 next year, and the allocation for overtime pay has been adjusted back to $200,000, down from the original request of $250,000. A part time secretary would get a $3 per hour increase in pay going from $12 to $15.
Director Hale also has asked that the budget for In-service training be increased from $18,000 to $40,000, due to three EMS employees planning to attend paramedic school.
But the committee also addressed issues with medical examiners in the field and response times to death scenes. Under a proposed plan, some trained DeKalb EMS personnel would be sharing medical examiner investigator responsibilities when there is an ambulance call involving a death. Director Hoyte Hale would serve as the backup if no staff member is available at the time.
With the plan, the budget committee approved the EMS budget, which includes provisions for payment to EMS staff trained to perform ME duties. Those serving the positions would work under the physician who serves as the actual medical examiner/county coroner.
According to the plan, $5,000 would be budgeted, including $2,000 in the medical personnel salary line item. and $3,000 for overtime pay. Director Hale will be expected to make quarterly reports to the county’s Health, Education and Public Welfare Committee.
The original plan was to have Director Hale serve as the ME, with $5,000 going towards his salary for the extra duty, but after discussing it with Hale at the meeting, the plan was changed to have EMS employees serve as the MEs, with the $5,000 to be split towards salary and overtime for those involved.
Assistant EMS Director Trent Phipps told the committee, “We used to use off duty EMS personnel to answer these calls contracted through the courthouse and Medical Examiner Dr. Denise Dingle to do the job at $100 per call. I proposed that we get a group of people willing to do this in their off-duty time and pay them. The EMS has a long-established call-in policy, which means that if I call someone in to cover an ambulance, we pay them for three hours (minimum) whether they work two or three hours. Of course, if it goes over, we have to pay them over.”
“I asked him (Hale) if it would be a good idea to get off-duty people trained to come and cover the medical examiner calls and we pay them for three hours unless they do it more, which is not very common but to pay them at least three hours to do this,” explained Phipps.
“I have had a conversation with several EMS employees and got three solid yeses’ (willing to participate), a bunch of no’s, and a few maybes. The main concern most of them had was ‘will I get paid’ and ‘how much will I get paid’. The other concern they expressed was how many people are going to do this because they do not want to do it all the time,” Phipps continued. “If I can get numbers to (these) people I might get more cooperation. Several of the people who said yes are part-time employees and they won’t get any overtime, just straight time to do it,” he added.
“It was my idea to set a schedule, so dispatch doesn’t have to call a bunch of people, with the sheriff’s department waiting on somebody to get there. Of course, the ambulance is going to show up to start the preliminary things because we have to go, but this would provide a set schedule, so dispatch knows who to call. I will set up a calendar and fill it out every month for who is on call,” said Assistant EMS Director Phipps.
The county commission will have to give final approval with passage of the consolidated budget in June.
