Nelson Supervisors approve EMS schedule change to attract applicants

This week, the Nelson County Board of Supervisors were asked to consider additional funding for paid fire and rescue personnel as well as a shift change to become effective on July 1. 

“This item has come up just in conversation between myself, Chief [Curtis] Sheets, and also John Adkins, our emergency services director,” said Candy McGarry, the Nelson County Administrator. “Just regarding the issues that they’re having in retaining and attracting specifically Advanced Life Support and paramedic EMS staff.” 

Nelson County contracts with the Wintergreen Rescue Squad for paid emergency medical services. That’s an arrangement that’s been in place since 2006. 

“Two crews of 24/7 coverage in the county,” McGarry said. 

Those crews currently spend 24 hours on and then have 48 hours off. The proposal is to transition to a schedule of 24 hours on with 72 hours off. 

“Everyone around us, August, Amherst, Buckingham, and Fluvanna, have gone to this schedule and we are competing [for] EMTs and paramedics with those agencies,” McGarry said. 

Curtis Sheets is the Chief of the Wintergreen Rescue Squad, and he apologized to the Board for coming to them outside of the budget cycle. He said he’s lost half of his staff to other jurisdictions and there are currently no qualified applicants. 

“One of the things that changed about three years ago [was] when Buckingham County created their Department of Emergency Services, they chose a schedule model that was 24 hours on, 27 off, which at that time was unconventional and I for one thought it would never last,” Sheets said. “Couldn’t be sustained. Too expensive. And it stuck around and then more and more people started to pile on that schedule model.”

Chief Sheets said being able to advertise that this shift change would go into effect on July 1 would help to attract more qualified candidates. The schedule would add a fourth shift and the anticipated payroll increase is estimated at be $281,000 a year. 

“The current budget for FY24 for our paid EMS program is currently about $1.4 million so that would add almost another $300,000 so it would be close to about $1.7 million in [the FY25] budget,” McGarry said. 

McGarry said about half of the current budget is fueled through EMS recovery fees, which have not been updated since 2012. That prompted Supervisors to ask if those could be increased to keep up with inflation. 

“The costs of goods in my office have gone up by at least 200 or 300 percent in the last few years.” said South District Supervisor Jessica Ligon, a veterinarian. 

EMS recovery fees are mostly paid by insurance companies and Medicaid. 

Supervisors voted 4-0 to authorize the schedule change with details on potential recovery costs to be worked out during the budget cycle. 

North District Supervisor Tommy Harvey was absent. 

The Wintergreen Rescue Squad asked for a loan of $100,000 to purchase a fifth ambulance for their fleet. The source is a county-run revolving loan fund for volunteer public safety companies. 

“On our side of the grant program, we consider these funds to be callable notes so if an agency has some sort of crisis while we owe this $100,000, what typically would happen is that the leaders of the agencies come back together and say, hey, does anybody have the ability to make an extra payment this month?” said Chief Curtis Sheets, who has been a firefighter since 1999.  

The ambulance is a 2022 Ford F-450 that will cost $235,000.

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