Overtime Pay Pushing Tenn. Agency Over Budget

April 13--Cumberland County Emergency Medical Services is projected to end the year about $270,000 over budget for overtime pay, but the budget committee of the Cumberland County Commission noted the department is making progress in bringing those costs down.

"It's a terrible number and I hate it," EMS Director Chris Miller told the committee during its April 4 meeting. "I've been trying to string it along as long as I can."

Cumberland County Deputy Finance Director Jennifer Turner reported the department was $38,941 over budget for overtime costs this year out of a budget of about $650,000.

"We are seeing a decline," Turner said.

Average overtime costs for March were $3,309 per pay period. She projected an additional $270,000 would be needed to fund overtime costs through June 30, when the fiscal year ends.

Funds are available in full-time personnel to help cover some of the deficit -- about $150,000 to $170,000.

Miller said some of the issues are related to employees with long-term injuries and another on military leave. There have also been personnel leave the department. He has six part-time employees and is taking applications to find more. Two part-time employees are working full-time shifts, noted Roy Turner, 7th District commissioner and an employee of the department. Miller added he had hired one part-time employee to fill a full-time spot and hopefully continue to reduce overtime costs.

He said it can be difficult to recruit new employees to the department due to the high call volume in Cumberland County. The county consistently has more than 1,000 runs each month while surrounding counties have far fewer calls. Part-time employees are paid the same as full-time employees. EMTs start at $12.88 an hour while paramedics start at $14.17 an hour. That's competitive to surrounding counties, Miller said.

"It's been hard to get people to come to Cumberland County the last few years," Miller said. "If someone's sick and no part-time to call in, it's either shut a truck down -- which we don't want to do -- or call in a full-time."

Turner said a shortage of part-time personnel made it difficult to staff the ambulances across the county. And, if there are not enough personnel to staff all seven ambulances during a shift, it increases the workload for everyone else. He noted Miller would work with a crew from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. when possible to keep from shutting down an ambulance.

Miller said. "We do everything we can to not shut a truck down."

The panel said they wanted to hear monthly updates on the overtime situation at EMS and do one budget resolution to close out the year in June.

Part-time and overtime costs are also trending high in 911 Communications, though there are funds available to cover those costs from part-time personnel. As of the April 4 meeting, the budget deficit for part-time personnel was about $10,962.20.

911 Communications Director Mike Blackwood explained training for emergency communications dispatchers takes six months to a year to complete. There are currently four part-time employees in training. They train for 56 hours every two weeks at a cost of $607.60 per employee.

Even if trainees complete the training, however, there is no guarantee they will continue with their employment. He noted there had been one trainee who had done very well in training but decided to leave the office.

"She was an all star. She took every call from bad wrecks on the interstate to suicides -- you name it," Blackwood said. "One infant death -- she has an infant at home -- she's done. Things happen that we just can't anticipate."

There are currently no fully-trained part-time employees for the department. That makes it difficult to control overtime costs and cover shifts when others are out or help cover when turnover.

"We got ourselves into a bind when I first got here," he said. "We had people leave and we didn't have any part-timers anywhere near the county we could offer full-time employment to. I am a little paranoid about keeping well-trained, fully staffed part-timers in the hopper."

He suggested line-time budget amendments to transfer $11,000 from maintenance and repair and $20,000 from dispatchers-radio operators to cover additional costs for part-time personnel.

"We've had so many open slots over the year that there is a surplus of that money [the $20,000 in the dispatchers-radio operators budget]. We'll be covered," he said.

Sonya Rimmer, 8th District commissioner, moved to approve a budget amendment as described by Blackwood. The motion was supported by Roy Turner, 7th District commissioner, and was unanimously approved.

In other business, Miller updated the panel on its billing. March payments totaled $562,344 -- up from $408,312 in February and $195,990 in January.

That brings the EMS revenue to $2.5 million for the year against a budgeted $3.65 million.

Heather Mullinix is assistant editor of the Crossville Chronicle. She covers schools and education in Cumberland County. She may be reached at hmullinix@crossville-chronicle.com.

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