Fentress Budget Committee Looking To Solve EMS Retention

An increase of $33 for on-call EMS pay approved by the Fentress County Budget Committee on Thursday night.

The on-call pay is currently $7, increasing to $40 on July 1 if approved in the final county budget. Commissioner Larry Cooper said an increase to just $30 might not work for current EMS employees.

“I know that, that it doesn’t look good at the service,” Cooper said. “I know that more are looking to leave. I was told today four more was leaving.”

If approved, the potential change to EMS pay would increase the Fentress County budget from roughly $25,000 to about $145,000.

Commissioner Kim Davidson made the motion to approve the $40 on-call pay raise. Cooper said this has been an issue for as long as three years within ambulance services. He said it is an issue across the Upper Cumberland. Davidson said EMS service is a concern among most county residents.

“I think if you survey most of the people in this county, EMS is a very critical, crucial factor to everybody,” Davidson said. “So we’ve got to do what we can to keep that afloat and keep that going.”

County Executive Jimmy Johnson said he’s going to speak with someone from the state EMS on Friday. He said a generation of people have been lost in this line of work when previously, there were few chances to get into the department as an applicant.

“The only way you would get a job is if somebody passed away or retired,” Johnson said. “They had a stack of applications when they had no openings. That generation went elsewhere and now it’s hard to get them back.”

This $33 dollar pay raise has not been officially adopted by Fentress County. The raise will need to make it through the entire budget process until the final fiscal year 2021-2022 budget is adopted by the county.