DARLINGTON – The Emergency Medical Services of Lafayette County committee meeting was called to order by chair Bob Boyle on April 13 – 7:00 a.m.
The Medical Director for the department – Mike Repplinger was introduced.
Repplinger stated, “I primarily works at UW Hospital in Madison in emergency medicine for about ten years. I conduct EMT and paramedic training with different departments and hospitals. I recently picked up some work in Darlington and fell in love with the place and it just so happened that this job opened up. I thought I could help coordinate things and apply my previous experience and training. I’m looking forward to continued collaboration.”
The committee went through and approved three documents pertaining to EMS staff items.
•Staff job descriptions – Emergency Vehicle operator, Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). A long list of duties and responsibilities were outlined for each position.
Shawn Phillips, EMS Service Director explained specific requirements and any changes that were made prior to the meeting.
•Staff Pay Structure – On call rate will be $1.00 per hour for every hour on call for all staff levels. When on a call: drivers - $10.00 per hour; EMR - $12.00 per hour; EMT-B - $15.00 per hour; AEMT - $16.00 per hour and Paramedic - $20.00 per hour.
A bonus program – if any staff has 200 hours or more per quarter will receive $100 bonus. If they achieve 200 hours for all four quarter they will receive an additional $100 bonus.
This will need to go through the county’s human resources and then to county board.
•Staff Requirements and Scheduling – document covered minimum requirements (24 hours of on call time per month), policy, bonus program and Lafayette County employees.
Committee member Ashley Kleiber asked, “Is there anything about mandatory training hours. Will that be paid because it’s mandatory or is it not?”
Phillips answered, “I’ve been thinking about that. I believe the training should be mandatory. My end goal would be to have all of the refresher hours in-house.
Committee member Mary Pilling said, “Most places aren’t paid, because it’s required by the state to keep your license and in order to get paid by the service you have to have an up-to-date license.”
Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County CEO Kathy Kuepers said, “That’s something we will have to discuss going forward.”
Regarding Lafayette County employees and hours working for EMS:
Employees will be required to flex their schedule (by working with their primary department head) to ensure they do not accumulate overtime and/or comp time when responding to a call.
-Example: Jack goes on a three-hour call on Tuesday night. He must then ensure that he does not work more than 37 hours in his primary department in that week.
Employees will not clock-out of their primary position when responding to a call. This will be taken care of behind the scene by the EMS Director and the primary department’s HR person.
-Example: Sarah works in the Clerk’s office, responds to a call, and is gone for 5 hours. She must ensure that when completing her required EMS paperwork she lists start and end times. The EMS Director will bi-weekly submit these sheets to the primary department’s HR person. The primary department payroll person will then edit the employee’s timecard to reflect 5 hours at the EMS rate.
Overtime of Lafayette County employees was also discussed.
County Board Chair Jack Sauer, “We’re starting this process, it’s a fluid process. We might decide six months into this we need to tweek or change a few things. I think we start out with what we got and see how it works.”
In other business:
•No action regarding purchasing the assets of Rural Medical.
•Announced a recruitment plan of EMS staff.
