PENDER COUNTY — A staffing crisis was left without action Monday at Pender EMS and Fire after county commissioners could not achieve a quorum to take a vote, due to multiple conflicts of interest. Instead, they tabled a retention package at first proposed at $900,000 but pared down to $374,000.
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ALSO: Pender commissioners vote on EMS and Fire merger, exclude Rocky Point FD
The Pender County Board of Commissioners voted 3-1 — Commissioner Jimmy Tate opposed — to delay funding urgent retention and recruitment efforts for Pender EMS & Fire. Instead, commissioners said they’d pick it up at a later date, despite warnings the staffing shortage is actively affecting service delivery.
Pender EMS and Fire Assistant Chief Mark Haraway told commissioners that since the merger was initiated in March, 42 staff members have left the department, with three more departures pending. As of Sept. 4, the nonprofit has 192 total employees. Before the merger was approved by the county, total employees were closer to 250.
“We’re losing people, and if we don’t do something, they’re [Pender County] not going to have anything to absorb,” Haraway stated at the meeting. “It’s also affecting service delivery. You know, we’re down to minimum staffing on fire apparatus, three persons per fire apparatus. Across the board, all of our four person companies have been reduced to three person companies.”
When they do address the retention package vote, the board of commissioners may not have a legal quorum, due to three separate commissioner recusals. Commissioner Brad George’s wife is employed by PEMSF and withdrew from voting. George previously was accused of a conflict of interest in relation to his vote to appropriate county funds to PEMSF last year. However, he was cleared by the district attorney’s office of any wrongdoing.
As explained by County Attorney Trey Thurman, Chair Randy Burton and Vice Chair Brent Springer would also be unable to vote on the retention package since they serve on the PEMSF board. The two commissioners added themselves to the PEMSF board when initiating the merger.
State law defines a quorum — the minimum required for government boards to legally conduct business — as a majority of the full membership, or in this case three members. With only Commissioners Jerry Groves and Jimmy Tate eligible to vote, the board would not meet the mandate.
Tate expressed frustration that commissioners’ own actions had created the quorum problem: “If the majority of y’all have a conflict of interest, who can vote? We couldn’t take care of this if we wanted to.”
Springer told Port City Daily Thurman is working on an agreement between PEMSF leadership and commissioners to legally enable the board to vote on the retention package. PCD reached out to Thurman for details and clarification on how the board could move forward, but a response was not received by press.
“How it’s going to work, I don’t know,” Springer told PCD, noting commissioners are waiting to hear back from the attorney to clarify.
PEMSF’s initial retention package request totaled $899,102, to include funds for longevity pay, a salary adjustment, new hire sign-on bonuses, increased holiday time, and in-house Advanced EMT training. The money would come from the county’s general fund.
County staff, however, recommended a pared-down $374,812 budget amendment to be drawn from the county’s reserves, focusing only on sign-on bonuses, A-EMT training, salary adjustments, and longevity pay.
The request to provide PEMSF employees with the same holidays as Pender County employees, at a projected total cost of $524,290, was not recommended for approval by county staff. Pender County employees get 15 days of paid holiday time per year, while Pender EMS and Fire staff currently get eight.
Commissioner Tate asked Haraway why PEMSF did not come to the board with requests for payroll increases during budget deliberations earlier this year.
“Well, I just, I’ll have to be honest, we didn’t foresee a mass exodus of employees,” Haraway responded.
Speaking on retention, Tate wanted to ensure existing county employees aren’t forgotten while also dealing with PEMSF staff’s concerns. He said he has heard from current county employees who were worried over their own compensation.
“I was bombarded by people today, staff, employees, who said to me: ‘How can you do this for them and not us? What about us?’” Tate stated. “What about the county employees working maintenance, water and sewer, health department, all our various other departments. It’s a private entity account, how are we going to do this for our other entities?”
Springer said voting to table the package at the meeting does not mean PEMSF employees don’t deserve it.
“I don’t want the employees to think if this doesn’t go through, we don’t care enough about them to give them some kind of longevity pay or something of that nature,” Springer stated.
Pending the agreement between PEMSF leadership and commissioners, the board will consider the retention package again at their next meeting on Oct. 20.
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