Tri-Town Ambulance adds to EMT pay
Against a backdrop of fiscal restraint in the three member up-Island towns, the Tri-Town Ambulance Committee voted, at a meeting on June 22, to distribute most of a $20,835 unused balance in the committee's incentive pay account to Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) who have served during the year.
The vote of the seven-member committee that represents Aquinnah, Chilmark, and West Tisbury was unanimous. Three of the committee members are also EMTs.
Aquinnah police Chief Randhi Belain, Tri-town chairman, said the practice of disbursing unused incentive pay is not new. He said the benefit helps compensate EMTs fairly.
In conversations with The Times this week, finance committee members in the three towns said they were unaware of the vote. Some of them expressed concern at the way in which the decision was made.
Incentive pay
Nearly all of the EMTs and paramedics who operate the well-regarded Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulance service are volunteers, but the committee has established a well-defined schedule of stipends to encourage medics to remain on the active roster and to answer emergency calls at all hours. Each medic on the active roster who makes at least five ambulance runs in a year receives a base incentive of $400, according to the schedule approved by the committee.
They receive additional incentive pay, up to $600 more, based on the number of emergency calls they answer. They may also earn additional stipends for daily or weekly tasks, attendance at squad meetings, or for achieving advanced certifications.
The fiscal year 2009 budget, which ended Tuesday, included $53,000 for incentive pay. But after paying the base incentive, and all additional stipends due according to the established schedule, there was $20,835 left in the account, according to a proposal advanced by ALS coordinator Martina Mastromonaco on how the money might be disbursed. In the proposal, Ms. Mastromonaco recommended that medics be paid an additional $20 for each eligible ambulance run he or she made during the year. According to the proposal, there were 750 such eligible ambulance runs in the last fiscal year. After this calculation was complete, with suitable qualifications, the proposal suggested that the remainder of the account, $6,220, be used to repair an "intercept" vehicle used to transport medics. The committee approved that option.
Fiscal fissure
No finance committee members contacted by The Times were aware of the Tri-Town Ambulance Committee action, but several expressed concern about the decision to distribute the unspent money.
During the recent round of annual town meetings, town leaders trimmed cost of living increases for town employees and looked hard for budget savings.
In other Island towns, as the end of the fiscal year approached, town leaders went to department heads and asked them to cut spending, and return previously authorized funds, to make up for expected shortfalls in revenues.
Isaac Taylor, chairman of the Aquinnah finance committee, expressed strong support for the ambulance service, but questioned the process of disbursing extra incentive pay.
"It seems to me that it should have at least been brought to the towns before it was disbursed," Mr. Taylor said. "That seems a little strange. As a resident of Aquinnah, I would have liked to have known about the extra money and the possibility of getting that money back."
Ann Nelson, vice chairman of the West Tisbury finance committee, said her committee had been approached with a request for funds to repair the intercept vehicle.
"I took the stance that these are tough, hard economical times," Ms. Nelson said. "I could not see justifying that amount of money. My vote to supplement their budget out of reserve funding was no."
Richard Knable, a former finance committee member and now a selectman in West Tisbury, said he was surprised at the ambulance committee vote.
"That's not the process," said Mr. Knable, who offered an analogy. "We don't go back if we have money left, and raise the salary of town employees, no matter how dire or urgent it may be. What they did was very unusual, and they need to look at their procedures."
According to town finance officials, the usual practice for money left unspent in a budget account is for the money to be returned to member towns. This is a routine occurrence in individual towns, among their own departments, and town accountants are busy this week reconciling unspent money returned to the general fund from various departments.
Pay rates
The Tri-Town Ambulance Committee includes the three police chiefs of up-Island towns, one additional appointee from each town, and a representative of the EMT squad. On the current committee are Chief Belain of Aquinnah, Chief Brian Cioffi of Chilmark, and Chief Beth Toomey of West Tisbury. Also on the committee are Aquinnah fire Chief Walter Delaney, West Tisbury selectman Dianne Powers, Mary Boyd of Chilmark, and squad representative Bruce Haynes. For Chief Cioffi, who was officially sworn in as police chief in Chilmark yesterday, the June 22 meeting was his first as representative of Chilmark. At that meeting, Chief Belain was elected chairman of the committee, replacing retiring Chilmark police chief Tim Rich.
Asked about the process of disbursing the funds to EMTs instead of returning the unspent money to member towns, committee members deflected the question by defending the good work of the medics, and citing the current staffing issues. They said their decision provides proper compensation for EMTs, who they say are underpaid, in relation to other towns.
"Months ago the squad had a meeting and asked us to raise the amount of money people get, so they could be competitive with the other towns," Chief Toomey said. "If you understand the totality of what's going on, we need for our EMTs to be fairly treated. We're struggling as a system."
Mr. Haynes, the squad representative on the committee, said the incentive pay rates are well below other towns. "We're trying to keep EMTs as happy as possible."
At the annual town meeting in Aquinnah in May, the fiscal year 2010 Tri-Town Ambulance assessment of $103,681 came under fire from some voters who questioned Chief Belain extensively on the cost of the service to Aquinnah taxpayers. Some voters also objected to the cost assessment structure. Each town divides the cost equally, but the number of ambulance calls varies widely from town to town. Aquinnah had only 27 calls in 2008.
Chief Belain said the practice of disbursing unused incentive pay is not new. "We have done it before," he said. "It's just to give the EMTs a little more."
"It's just what it is, it's an incentive pay," said fire Chief Delaney of Aquinnah. "They probably deserve a lot more than they are getting. We're having a problem with volunteers filling the slots."
Conflicts collide
Three members of the committee are also EMTs who, depending on the number of runs they made, could benefit from incentive pay.
According to information from the state Ethics Commission, "the conflict law generally prohibits a municipal employee (paid or unpaid, appointed or elected, full-time or part-time) from participating in any particular matter in which the municipal employee... has a financial interest."
Mr. Haynes went on 38 ambulance runs during the year, according to committee records. As a result of the vote, he would be entitled to an additional $760 above the incentive pay he was due under the established rate schedule. Mr. Haynes was asked if he viewed his vote as a conflict of interest.
"It wouldn't have made any difference at that point," Mr. Haynes said. "It's been done in years past. Where the idea originated, I don't know."
Chief Belain went on five ambulance runs, so he will receive an additional $100. Ms. Boyd, of Chilmark, went on only two runs, so she is not eligible for any additional incentive pay this year.
Ms. Mastromonaco, the ALS coordinator, made 78 ambulance runs during the year. She is due $860 in incentive pay, according to the established schedule, and an additional $1,560, as a result of the committee's vote.
Record requests
Records of the Tri-Town Ambulance Committee meetings made it difficult to determine exactly what happened at the June 22 meeting. After repeated requests from The Times, Ms. Mastromonaco made a tape of the meeting available. But the tape was incomplete. The first part of the meeting was recorded, but the portion of the meeting covering the discussion and vote about additional incentive pay was inadvertently not recorded, according to Chief Belain.
The Times asked to examine the handwritten notes used to compose the official minutes of the meeting. But those notes also covered only the first part of the agenda. There were no contemporaneous notes about the incentive pay discussion or other agenda items later in the meeting. Official minutes of the meeting, approved by a vote of the committee at its June 29 meeting, did include an account of the discussion. But the minutes did not clearly indicate that the members voted to distribute a substantial amount of money to EMTs.
According to Chief Belain, at a meeting earlier this year, the committee voted to destroy tape recordings of its meetings after official minutes were composed. In response to a formal request for public records, citing the state laws that govern documentation of public meetings and require prompt access to those records, Chief Belain said the committee might consider rescinding its vote to destroy tape recordings of its meetings.
