Bedford County Emergency Medical Service's Airport Station, seen here, may go unstaffed if the county adopts austerity budgeting. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Order this photo]

BCEMS board member Whitney Neeley, at the board's regular monthly meeting Monday night, said that the budget would be a step backwards from BCEMS's efforts to reduce response time in rapidly-growing or heavily-populated rural areas.

The county's Financial Management Committee voted last month to ask county departments to submit two budget proposals -- a proposal the agency believes will meet its needs and an austerity budget which represents a 5 percent decrease from 2007-08 spending. County officials are worried about state funding, stagnant local tax revenues and increased energy costs.

From left, BCEMS board chairman Larry Hasty, board members James Darden and Whitney Neeley, director Chad Graham and board member Doyle Wilhoite discussed the service's budget position during a meeting Monday night. Board member Joe McCurry was not present. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

BCEMS had already submitted its budget request, as approved by the board last month, so director Chad Graham went back and prepared an austerity budget that would keep the agency from re-mounting one of its ambulance units on a new chassis, would eliminate pay raises and would prevent the ambulance service from hiring an additional ambulance crew to man the Airport station now under construction. After those cuts, the austerity budget would still fall $54,000 short.

A new station near Cascade School is scheduled to open June 1. That station can be staffed under both proposals by transferring one of two crews from the Union Street station.

Employee retention

Board members also say the lack of a pay raise would put BCEMS at risk of losing trained personnel to neighboring counties that pay better and/or have better insurance coverage.

"If you don't make an adjustment, we will not be competitive next year," said Graham. Graham said it's already impossible for BCEMS employees to afford family plan insurance coverage, which costs the employee more than $800 per month. He said employees who have a family or expect to start one are unlikely to be recruited by BCEMS.

The county makes a standard contribution toward insurance costs for all county employees. The amount is the same whether the employee has individual or family coverage.

Neeley said the same recruitment and retention problems, based on the high employee insurance costs, are affecting Bedford County Sheriff's Department and the county school system.

The original BCEMS budget request was for $2,594,941, an $812,689 increase -- which includes $436,364 in Social Security and employee benefit expenses that formerly were combined into a single county-wide budget item -- over the current $1,782,252 budget .

The increase also includes $249,748 for six new positions (a two-man crew, around the clock, for the Airport station), and $44,905 for increased fuel costs.

The budget projects patient revenue to rise slightly, from $1,075,000 in the current fiscal year to $1.1 million in 2008-09.

The original plan was for the Airport station to become the new headquarters of BCEMS, but the current Union Street station would remain open because it's the most accessible station to much of the city's population.

The relocation of Bedford County Medical Center to the new Heritage Medical Center facility is expected to result in higher fuel costs for BCEMS, because BCEMS will have farther to transport city patients.

Life and death

The purpose of BCEMS's overall growth plan is to reduce response times throughout the county. In cases of cardiac emergency, say officials, a few minutes' time waiting on an ambulance can mean the difference between life and death. The plan began by relocating the Academy station (on the grounds of Tennessee Fire Service and Codes Enforcement Academy) to Unionville, so that it would be closer to the rapidly-growing subdivisions in northwest Bedford.

Currently, with the Unionville station in place, the academy has an eight-minute response time within the Unionville district, 9 minutes to Wartrace, 11 to Normandy, 12 to Bell Buckle, 13 to Wheel and 14 to Flat Creek, according to Graham's report Monday night.

The Cascade station is expected to reduce response times to Bell Buckle and, to a lesser extent, Wartrace. The Airport station is expected to reduce response times to the northern central portions of the county, such as Deason.

The projects now in the pipeline won't have a direct impact on the long response times in Wheel or Flat Creek, in the southern half of the county. In general, the northern half of the county -- driven by growth in nearby Rutherford County -- has grown more rapidly in recent years than the southern half.