Fire, EMS negotiate a merger

Group leaders find it’s not an easy sell

Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007

But as they are preparing to merge the Charles County Volunteer Firemen’s Association and the Charles County Association of Emergency Medical Services into a combined force, these leaders are discovering a fresh hell — the role of the political pitchman.

‘‘It’s all I’ve been doing for the past few months,” said County Fire Chief Duane Svites, the fire chief operational officer for the firemen’s association.

Pushing against 50 years of tradition in a culture that strongly values its heritage, the association’s leaders are working to create a unified association. Leaders say the new association would streamline communications between stations and with the government; increase standardization of policies and equipment; improve long-range strategic planning; and greatly magnify the services’ grant acquisition and purchasing powers.

Svites described the county’s current volunteer system as ‘‘17 different little departments,” each scrabbling for increasingly scarce grant money and stretching their budgets to meet new performance standards laid out by the state and federal governments.

‘‘Our intention is to consolidate those 17 entities as they grow,” Svites said, adding that a united group of fire and rescue companies have a better chance of securing grants. ‘‘It’s tough to compete. The bigger you are, the better you compete.”

For Vernon Monday, chief executive officer of the EMS association, a unified association would make cooperation between fire and EMS stations much easier.

‘‘It’s hard to get everyone on the same page when we have two separate meetings,” Monday said. The firemen’s association meets on odd months and the EMS association meets on even months. Monday said it has taken up to four months for collaborative issues to be introduced and approved in both committees.

Even with strong arguments for a merger, fire and rescue leaders admit that their plan has sewn confusion and even paranoia among some station chiefs.

‘‘They think Big Brother is coming after them,” Svites said of station officers who have raised the stiffest objections to the merger. Some officers fear that a new, stronger association would destroy station autonomy and identity and open the door for the county to phase out the volunteer system in favor of paid fire and EMS staff.

According to Svites, the new association would leave disciplinary matters of members in the hands of individual stations. Svites further stated that the association would likely strike countywide deals for new trucks and apparatus, but that individual stations could still use their own fundraising money to customize the vehicles with the paint, chrome and lettering of their choice.

The rumors of a paid service takeover might seem ludicrous to those observing the county commissioners fret for the last few years over how to pay for the paid ambulance unit they already have. However, according to Monday, the rumor has gained deep traction thanks to the county’s rapid expansion of its paid advanced life support unit, whose members wear dark-blue uniforms.

‘‘When you see, all of the sudden, a lot more dark shirts,” Monday said, it is easy to believe that county government is moving to phase out the EMS volunteers.

Both Monday and Svites said it has been difficult to counter rumors of a county takeover. Svites suggested that it would help the associations’ merger efforts if the commissioners would ‘‘create an environment that is nonthreatening.”

Commissioner Samuel N. Graves Jr. (D), the commissioner board’s point man for public safety, said that rumors of the county trying to muscle in a paid service ‘‘could not be further from the truth.”

‘‘Charles County has enjoyed a wonderful fire and EMS service from our volunteers,” Graves said, adding that he makes it a point to thank volunteers for their service as often as possible. When asked if the county could afford to fund paid fire and EMS services, Graves said, ‘‘Not at the current tax base we have.”

Graves said the county’s ALS unit ‘‘grew at a much more rapid pace than anyone anticipated” in response to increased citizen demand for round-the-clock service and a declining pool of volunteers. Given the stiff new training requirements and the fact that most county residents work outside the county during the day, volunteer EMS stations couldn’t find qualified volunteers and ‘‘weren’t able to keep up with the pace,” Graves said.

Graves said he realizes that volunteer stations feel ‘‘a little threatened,” but he said the county is ‘‘keeping as many services as we can with the volunteer service.”

The merger comes at a delicate time for the county’s emergency services. The pending retirement of emergency services Director Don McGuire leaves the volunteers wondering what direction the county’s paid ALS service will take under new leadership. Association leaders said that ongoing friction between paid and volunteer services and the debate over where to rebuild the Cobb Island fire station threaten the stability of the merger.

The associations’ leaders hope to hold a ratification vote on the merger by the end of the year. The vote will require a 75 percent majority to pass. The merger must then be approved by the county commissioners and written into county law.

Monday said he believes that the merger will be successful, but noted, ‘‘We have a lot of selling to do.”

E-mail Jay Friess at jfriess@somdnews.com.