Central Fire & EMS pass $2 wage for on call hours

By Ross Pattermann

In an effort to encourage more volunteers to work on call night and weekend shifts, along with retaining the services of those who already volunteer, the Central Fire & EMS board approved a motion that will pay on call volunteers two dollars an hour.

The decision was prompted by EMS Chief Travis Nixdorf, who told the board the department has been having difficulty finding staff to fill it’s 48 hour on call weekend shifts.

“We’ve been having issues, and it’s not anything new, of finding people signing up for their shifts,” Nixdorf informed the board. Nixdorf said the majority of shifts are being filled by the same people, and he worried what would happen should one of them become unavailable.

“We have a fair amount of EMTs, and the shifts just aren’t getting covered. It seems to be the same people going on the call,” Nixdorf said. “There’s literally only two people in Abbotosford, and Heaven forbid Joe [Mueller] or Lin [Mueller] are gone. With the call burden we’ve been having, it puts more of the burden on these people.”

Nixdorf said he conducted a survey prior to the meeting, and spoke with other stations on ways to solve the ongoing problem.

Nixdorf said what seemed to work for other stations was an hourly wage.

“A lot of other services pay for their members to be on call,” Nixdorf said. “They have for years. It seems to be a good majority of people would pick up more hours if we paid an on-call wage.”

Nixdorf said he was not interested in hiring full-time staff as it would put added pressure on the department’s budget. He noted that Medford and Spencer’s fire departments pay their on-call volunteers an hourly wage, and suggested the board should adopt a similar plan.

Nixdorf floated out the idea of $2 an hour, which amounts to roughly $100 per person for a weekend shift, with roughly 324 hours covered a month.

There was some discussion how this would affect the department’s budget, and how effective it would be.

“What you guys are going to do is going to affect everybody,” Abbotsford mayor Jim Weix said. “There’s people that will like it, and people that will be pissed. You’re not going to make everyone happy.”

However, Nixdorf said not doing anything would continue to leave the situation as it is, and risk seeing the situation deteriorate even further.

“We have to try something, we can’t be doing what we are now.”

The board agreed on a rate of $2 an hour, with the plan going into effect this month on a trial basis.

The board will extend the plan until the month of August, when the board discusses their annual budget. From there, the board will re-examine the measure’s efficacy.

“This seems to work at a lot of places that have been doing this for a long time,” Nixdorf said. “I guess we don’t know unless we try.”

Other business

_ The board approved a motion to purchase a used rescue truck, and not to exceed $40,000. The rescue truck will replace two vehicles which are already in use. Those vehicles will then be sold, with the money going towards offsetting the $40,000 needed to purchase the used rescue truck.

_ A motion was made to approve purchasing new lights for Rescue #31. The lights have burnt out in the tower, and the cost to repair and replace the lights is not to exceed $3,000.

_ Total calls to service in January was EMS- 72 and Fire- 6.