Pay, hour cuts frustrate staff of ambulance service

Three full-time Jefferson County Area Ambulance workers met with Jefferson County Supervisor chairman Steve Burgmeier informally this morning to air frustrations and warn that pay cuts and hour cuts are hurting morale and possibly staffing/service.

?The city, the county and the hospital are committed to having an ambulance service in the county,? said Burgmeier. ?Whether they [private owners of the service] can fulfill the contract is another thing.?

He arranged for a meeting of the ambulance board for 1:30 p.m. Monday at Jefferson County Health Center. It is an open, public meeting.

Jefferson County Area Ambulance is a privately owned business, and the county has had an ambulance service provider the past 40 years or so, said Burgmeier.

With a staff of less than 20, two ambulance workers have left employment recently, said the ones meeting this morning.

?We already have shifts with no one to work,? said one employee.

?I?m working extra shifts to cover,? said another employee.

The ambulance workers have three 24-hour shifts. Two at a time serve ?at base.? during the 24 hours, sleeping, eating and staying at the base on South 17th Street, until responding to a call. At the same time, two more employees are on-call ? that is they wear radios and stay within a 5-mile radius ? to report to base each time the first two employees go out.

Employees are paid their regular wages when at the base or responding to calls.

The second tier of on-call employees receive $3.32 per hour on call as well as for mandatory attendance at special events such as high school football games and the county fair.

?Our hours were cut, from 40 hours a week to 30, and pay was cut 3 percent across the board,? said one worker.

Another worker said the owners explained the pay and hours? cuts were a measure to offset rising liability insurance.

Burgmeier pointed out the service does have to show a profit, or the contract/agreement between the company and county is void.

"It comes back down to reimbursement rates," he said. "I've had a look at the books, but I'm not intimately involved. Expenses have been going up. Reimbursement rates for Medicare and Medicaid haven't. And I've also heard one insurance carrier is dropping all EMS across the state."

Jefferson County has a line item in its annual budget, $25,000 in 2013, and divides that by 12 and doles out the amount monthly to the ambulance service.

?I think participation by the city is going to be vital to future sustainability of the service,? Burgmeier said. ?Even if the service were to go hospital-based, we?d still have to increase the subsidy. The ambulance service handles an average of 1,300 calls per year. That?s three or four calls a day.?

?I can?t work here much longer this way it?s going,? said one employee.

Another one said the majority of current ambulance workers know the system, know the hospital workers, where addresses are located in the county, and any new replacements coming in need about a year to get up to speed on such things.