Celina EMS Workers Concerned About Lack Of Pay Raise

Celina ambulance employees voiced concerns over equal benefits during Tuesday’s Celina Board of Aldermen meeting.

Celina Mayor Luke Collins said police and water department employees will receive pay increases. However, Collins said local EMS workers will not this fiscal year due to financial constraints.

Paramedic Andy Hall said members still want to be treated the same compared to other city employees.

“Fifteen years I have been here, I have never made a holiday,” Hall said. “The rest of the employees have, and we asked to get our holiday pays. Not even for the whole of the employees, just the ones that are working that day. Because it is hard to find people work period and to have people working holidays for no extra pay that makes it worse.”

Collins said excluding EMS from the raises was not his intention. Collins said the recently increased water rate supplemented the water department, and a vacant budgeted position in the police department allowed for a raise.

“It has been our goal for four months to try to get a pay increase for all the employees,” Collins said. “Now, I spoke first to our emergency service people about the pay increase, and with that goal of increasing the pay for the city. The city is not financially strong enough to do all the things it wants to do at one time. We went into it with the goal to help our ambulance folks first.”

Collins and Hall both agreed to schedule a meeting with local ambulance workers to discuss the differences. Collins said if a EMS raise were to happen next fiscal year, it would likely mean a property tax increase.