Board approves incentive pay for EMS staff

County to dangle holiday pay to encourage filling short shifts

BY CHUCK VANDENBERG
PCC EDITOR

LEE COUNTY - The Lee County Board of Supervisors approved using a double-time-and-a-half incentive to help fill critically short staffing issues within the county's EMS service.

Lee County EMS Ambulance Director Dennis Cosby said staffing shortages are being seen throughout the country and incentive pay has worked in the past.

"I know this comes at a bad time with the raises that were just approved, however, we are continuing to have critical staffing issues here at EMS," Cosby said. "This is not an isolated issue for Lee County EMS. It's currently a national problem and probably one of the worst we've faced in EMS history."

Cosby said EMS staff has been underpaid for years, coupled with the expense and time of education for certification and the global pandemic is making it difficult to convince and attract people into the field.

He said EMS staff usually works 24-hour shifts and typically gets little rest. He said mandatory overtime is not being well-received and is leading to poor morale.

"Frankly, it's not very safe to do. We're only able to mandate overtime to full-time staff which further complicates mandatory overtime," he said.

Typically the weekend shifts are the toughest to fill. He said the staff is also short one full-time paramedic position and another one opening in March. There is also one full-time EMT position that could be filled this week, but then there's another 30 days of orientation before they can hit the schedule.

Cosby asked the board to approve an incentive pay structure that would offer 2.5 times the employee's hourly wage to encourage staff to pick up the harder-to-fill shifts. Currently, both Cosby and Lee County EMS Director of Operations Jason Dinwiddie are both filling in shifts and still had six paramedic shifts and 10 EMT shifts open on the schedule.

Some of those are partial shifts with part-time staffing help fill in some of the shifts, but said an incentive could work to help fill slots.

"I'm proposing a premium pay incentive for difficult-to-fill open shifts. We use the carrot and not the stick approach and incentivize our employees to pick up shifts. I think we should offer them premium pay at double-time-and-a-half just like we would for holidays," Cosby said.

"We used this approach in Henry County fairly successfully. While it doesn't always work, it certainly helps."

Cosby said the service also needs to consider adding staff as call volumes continue to rise.

"Unfortunately, we've reached the limit of what we can do with the staff we have," he said.

"It's important that we look at this stuff to improve the care the residents of Lee County are receiving and that we continue to lead the way of the future for EMS."

Supervisor Garry Seyb, Jr., asked if there had been any additional thought given to providing a specific transfer business model to help solidify the future of the EMS department.

Cosby said they are pulling data to see what the demand looks like and what service calls look like.

Dinwiddie said in the first 25 days of January, the service had 92 times when two ambulances were on 911 calls going on simultaneously. He said there were also 15 times where there were three ambulances on 911 calls at the same time.

Cosby said there were 70 calls for transfers during the 1st 25 days, and said the county is currently turning down transfers due to staffing.

"I try to prioritize our two hospitals here in the county first, and then Great River, but we get requests from Quincy and Van Buren and often times those get turned down," Cosby said.

Seyb said that's when the county could get the best return on investment and the county EMS should work up a business model to staff a transfer ambulance or operation to take some of the workload off the emergency response by having that transfer system in place.

Cosby said adding a transfer truck, even for 12 hours a day, would be beneficial to the county.

Seyb said he thinks the incentive pay is a short-term fix, but adding the transfer staffing and services is the way to help solidify the budget and allow for staff and service development.

Board Chairman Matt Pflug said he would caution against going outside the county too often so people of Lee County are taken care of first, but said there could be money to be made by offering the transfer services.

In a related issue, the county set a public hearing for Feb. 28 at 10:01 a.m. to consider the maximum levy for next fiscal year.

County Budget Director Cindy Renstrom is proposing an 11.2% increase in the general services fund and the rural fund levy staying at 2%. She said the county needs to increase the general services fund levy 11.2% to cover the costs of added benefits paid to the EMS staff the county purchased in July 1.

The county's current levy is $10.259/$1,000 of assessed valuation and she's proposing an increase to 10.327/$1,000. The county board last year approved a levy of $10.704/$1,000, but Renstrom said the state dropped that levy on final approval with the removal of the mental health levy.

Seyb said a county levy of $10.33 is still below the four-year average despite the increase in the general supplemental levy. Since the increase for the general supplemental fund is more than 2%, the increase would require 4 of 5 supervisors voting in favor of the increase, and would require a second public hearing on the matter.

Renstrom said she would like approval of the budget the first week in March and then finalize it to the state by the third week in March.