Council OKs temporary paramedic position

The Port Washington Common Council on Tuesday approved a plan to hire a full-time paramedic for the next two years, a temporary measure intended to help ease a shortage of ambulance staff members at the Fire Department.

“I’m very grateful,” Fire Chief Mark Mitchell said after the meeting. “The city’s going to be much better for it.”

But, Mitchell said, it is only a first step.

“It’s a Band-Aid on our dire need,” Mitchell said during the meeting, noting that on Thursday, Dec. 17, there aren’t enough staff members on the schedule to staff the ambulance until the evening. “This is a pattern that’s recurring.”

The council acknowledged the severity of the situation, with  Ald. Jonathan Pleitner calling it “a current short-term, drastic need.”

“It is a dire need,” Ald. Dan Benning agreed, adding that the city needs to be creative to meet the staffing shortage in the coming years.

Mayor Marty Becker concurred, noting that while other area ambulances cover for Port when there aren’t enough people to staff the ambulance, they can’t respond as quickly as the city’s service.

“It’s all about response time,” he said.

Benning also said he is heartened by the fact Mitchell has been seeking other ways to help address the situation, such as altering the paid-on-premise system to attract more emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

  “He’s not just sitting back saying there’s a problem. He’s doing what he can do,” Benning said.

The need for full-time help in the department came to the forefront this fall when Mitchell told the Police and Fire Commission that on numerous days the city’s ambulances remained in the station while other departments answered calls in the community because there weren’t enough emergency medical technicians and paramedics to staff the ambulance.

The reasons are many. Not only are there fewer people willing to volunteer their time, but the coronavirus has limited the pool of people willing to take on these duties in a pandemic.

“It’s really getting dire — it’s beyond dire, it’s catastrophic. We need help,” Mitchell said last month. “We don’t have adequate staffing. It’s overwhelming.”

Aldermen on Tuesday adopted a plan by City Administrator Tony Brown to fund the position for two years using four funding sources — money allocated but not used for wages and benefits in the 2020 Fire Department budget; money allocated for purchases this year that was replaced by grant money; part-time wages in the department over the next two years that can be used instead for the full-time position; and money saved by not immediately filling vacant staff positions in the city.

Those savings are expected to total $194,500 over the next two years, according to Brown’s proposal.

The salary for the new position is $50,000, which Mitchell said is competitive compared to public and private sector employees.

The salary would increase by 10% in the second year and through the fifth year to provide paramedics an incentive to stay with the city, according to Brown’s plan.

Many applicants may find the position attractive because of the city’s benefit package, Brown added.

While the proposal adopted Tuesday only funds the paramedic for two years, the goal is to find a permanent funding source for the position. Brown said the seeds to meeting that goal will come through a shared services study that should be completed in early 2021 and a Fire Department staffing study to be conducted next year.

“I think the city’s put itself in a position where it can have a long-term staffing plan by 2023,” he said.

The position approved Tuesday is the second full-time ambulance crew member authorized for the department. That position has been filled twice, but both times the person has left shortly after beginning work in Port.

The Police and Fire Commission on Monday agreed to change the job description for the position, removing the need for applicants to be firefighters as well as paramedics.

That, they said, is likely to open the field of candidates.

Commission members also removed a residency requirement for the position, saying there is no need for it.

“If it’s a difficult position to fill, we should take off restrictions we’re comfortable removing,” commission member Jennifer Clearwater said.

Mitchell said there may be more people applying for the position this time around, noting that when the pandemic began, many schools stopped their paramedic classes. Those have since resumed, so there may be a pool of recent graduates looking for a job.

The department is also actively recruiting part-time EMTs and paramedics to help fill in the gaps in the department schedule, he said, and it is considering a change in the paid-on-premises policy to allow members to sign up for six-hour shifts instead of the current 12-hour shifts.