Ambulance Dispatch Debate Goes to Glasgow Committee

March 23--GLASGOW -- The debate is still cooking about how dispatching for Barren and Metcalfe counties' ambulance service should be handled, but now a committee has been delegated to work out a solution.

During the past two years, various issues have arisen stemming from the fact that the Barren-Metcalfe emergency medical services employ some emergency communications personnel, but the city of Glasgow employs the majority of the personnel.

A consultant who assessed the service's operations suggested putting all the dispatchers under one employer, and a hiring freeze was placed on EMS-employed dispatchers until a decision could be reached about how that would be handled.

At the February meeting of the ambulance service board, Beverly Harbison, director of the Barren-Metcalfe County Emergency Communications Center in Glasgow told the ambulance service board that one of the four full-time EMS dispatchers had been gone 14 months, one for three months and one just as of that day, and the positions were not filled because of the pending decision by that board. Meanwhile, she said, the city has been handling the cost of having to cover those individuals' shifts.

Before that meeting was over, the ambulance service board of directors had agreed to pay the overtime costs for the city for at least the one month between then and the next meeting, which was Wednesday, and it voted to have board member and Glasgow Mayor Dick Doty to develop figures for an estimated extra cost for the city to employ the EMS dispatchers in addition to the ones it already does.

Doty said Wednesday he had emailed those calculations to the other board members, but not to management; therefore, they were not in the packets provided at the meeting to members of the media as well as board members. Doty left after the meeting before the Daily Times could ask him about the figures, which no one stated during the meeting, but Chairman Joe Middleton said the total was approximately $168,000 for a year.

Doty said the city is willing to employ the EMS dispatchers, but he doesn't think it should bear the entire cost of it, so the city should bill the ambulance service based on some method yet to be determined, e.g. per run or a set amount.

This had come after an operations report in which Jason Blakley, interim director of the service, provided calculations that indicated the city may not have had to cover as much overtime as suggested, so board member and Barren County Judge-Executive Micheal Hale made a motion to table the decision on employment of dispatchers until the numbers from the ambulance service and the city's dispatch center could be reconciled.

"It's obvious there's two different stories," Hale said.

Discussion carried on for several more minutes, with similar comments as have been made before, and then a decision was formally postponed. Middleton then suggested letting a committee hash out the differences, an idea that was unanimously approved. He then appointed board members Hale; Doty; Bud Wethington, CEO of T.J. Samson Community Hospital; and Metcalfe County Judge-Executive Greg Wilson, with J.D. Walden, assistant director of the service, as a nonvoting member.

Blakley said that out of 9,428 possible dispatcher hours for EMS between Jan. 1, 2016, and Jan. 31, 2017, the ambulance service paid for 9,126 hours, so the service had paid for dispatchers 95.7 percent of that time, "and we have been keeping dispatchers there."

He said that in addition to the four full-time dispatchers the ambulance service had employed, which is now down to one, it also has three part-time dispatchers that have been used to cover many of those hours.

Questions had also arisen at the February meeting after office manager Steve Powell reported that, compared with the same point in the prior year's budget, a significantly smaller portion of the budgeted deficit had been needed this year, but when the dispatch question came up later, Wilson questioned whether that was just because not as much had been needed for dispatchers as opposed to other cost-savings measures.

Blakley said the primary reason he brought up the payment of dispatchers was to show that wasn't where the savings were, and Powell said the service was at 68 percent of its budget for dispatch personnel and at 67 percent through the fiscal year.

"The dollars show there's no savings for that," Powell said.

Doty said he didn't have Harbison's figures with him Wednesday, but would consult with her to better be able to discuss her calculations.

In other business:

--Doty, chairman of the Personnel Committee, reported that the deadline for applicants for the director's position had passed and after a cursory review of which ones met the minimum qualifications, the remainder of the resumes had been forwarded to the board members. He asked the board to decide what process it wanted to use, e.g. whether the entire board or just the committee should do interviews.

Blakley was appointed as interim director after the retirement of former director Mike Swift until the position could be filled permanently. He has said he applied for the job.

Before that determination was made, the board agreed to skip to another item on the agenda, which was to make appointments to committees, which Middleton said he wanted to shift because all the entities that cover the deficit -- Metcalfe and Barren counties, the City of Glasgow and the hospital -- were not represented on both of the standing committees for personnel and budget. After new committee assignments were accepted, board member Scott Young suggested allowing the committee of five to do the interviews and if it could unanimously agree on a choice, it could bring that to the board to ratify it. If the committee members could not make a unanimous decision, it could then bring the two finalists to the board for interviews and the full board would make the choice.

The board unanimously agreed to follow that process, and Doty said he would work with them on scheduling.

--Numerous times during discussions of budgeting and funding, Blakley, Walden and their predecessors have stated that the salaries for this ambulance service are the lowest in the region, and they were asked to gather information from other services for comparison. Those figures were provided in chart form Wednesday with data from Adair, Allen, Butler, Edmonson, Hart and Simpson counties compared with Barren-Metcalfe. Among those, four others have hazardous-duty salary and retirement benefits along with the same length of shift as the one here, so direct comparisons could be made, and Barren-Metcalfe had the lowest starting pay for full-time paramedics and full-time emergency medical technicians, and the second-lowest for part-time paramedics and EMTs. In at least two of those counties, it appeared the insurance benefits were also better, but insurance information was not available for all counties.

--Blakley reported that several donations had been received by the ambulance service in memory of Swift, who died March 6, as it was suggested by the family as one of the recipients of contributions in lieu of flowers. Walden, Swift's son-in-law, said the family wanted the money to be used to help employees in some manner. After discussion of the options for proceeding, it was determined that with that being the intent, a memorial foundation as initially suggested might not be the best route, although it was not ruled out completely. For now, the board has given authorization to create a separate bank account so the funds are not co-mingled, and a committee primarily of employees is to be formed to determine guidelines for how the money may be spent.

--The board authorized expenditure of $1,500 for further mold removal, particularly with duct cleaning, at the airport substation on the EMS portion of the building. Prior work had been done in the area leased by Air Methods helicopter ambulance service.

--The board also discussed continued efforts at bringing down the balance of unpaid accounts and collection times.

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