VIENNA — Officials have taken another step toward having a 24/7 emergency medical service, thanks to a resolution passed Friday night.
Trustees at a special meeting approved increasing the fire department’s staffing hours to 192 hours per week, effective April 1.
Trustee Mike Haddle said the township had adopted a fiscal recovery plan nearly a year ago, which was later approved by its fiscal recovery commission.
Haddle said there have been recovery item changes, such as the removal of traffic cameras via a measure eliminating speed cameras in counties or townships, and passed or renewed levies.
“We change those and put those into actual township budgetary items, in the proper lines where they’re at,” Haddle said. “We move some money around to some places, and then some things — just updating the plan is what we need to do.”
Haddle said funds like the general fund will be sitting okay, according to the updated plan, but the township has until the end of 2029 to get out of fiscal emergency.
“Even though the funds will say we’re out of fiscal emergency, we’re still in it until that five years is up, and then they (the state will) reevaluate the township,” Haddle said.
Haddle said the township’s road and bridge fund will be out of the negatives by the end of 2027, going into 2028.
The police fund is already out of the negatives, but it sits in limbo — a net zero, Haddle said.
Haddle keyed in on the fire department fund, explaining that it wasn’t a reflection of the department’s current employees when he called it “negative and deep in the hole.”
“It’s just where the overspending happened, it’s not a reflection to place blame, but the fire department is $730,000 in the hole at the end of 2025,” Haddle said. “They’re a little bit more now, because there’s some wages that we started in September.”
Haddle said the fire department could conclude 2026 with a negative $105,000 balance, escaping the negatives in 2027.
Haddle said the original recovery plan had accounted for a new ambulance, but he said fire Chief Gus Birch expressed the desire to push that off and use some of the allocated funds to increase hours.
Haddle said he spoke with Angie DeNunzio of the state auditor’s office, concluding that splitting the fire department’s allocated funds between 2026 and 2027 could still get them out of fiscal emergency by 2027, but not as ahead as the plan would originally have them.
Haddle said officials could look at the plan’s draft before approving it at their April 6 meeting, but said the fire department could increase its hours regardless.
Birch said fire officials had a meeting with Medi-Cal management, the township’s EMS billing company, and their representative said the township’s income would be more than initially anticipated, because Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurance companies have all increased their fees.
“In my opinion, too, with the Cafaro Foundation money coming into play, with the ambulance that we’re not going to purchase that was allocated — I truly believe that we can do this,” Birch said.
Haddle clarified that the Cafaro Foundation’s money was already in play, as they had always anticipated an additional revenue source.
Haddle said fire services are not a “one for one” trade.
“It’s about a three-to-one return; we will be increasing some hours, we will offset that by some increased revenue gain. We will have an increase of labor hours and labor expenses,” Haddle said. “It will be offset by about a third to 45% roughly — somewhere in there, depending on how the billings go — of labor to revenue.”
Haddle said they would not be having a conversation if the labor-to-income ratio were a net zero.
Keeping the fire department’s 12-and 24-hour shift scheduling in mind, Haddle said he was thinking the township could increase it to 62 hours a week, which would be an extra 122 hours per billing cycle and give them a total of 192 hours a week.
“Which, in all reality, we would not schedule them 192 hours — we would schedule probably, off the top of my head, probably 180 hours a week,” Birch said. “We like to leave a buffer in there in case someone gets held over, and we don’t go over what we’re allotted.”
Trustee Phil Pegg said he’d like to see the changes go into effect April 1, acknowledging Birch would not be able to get all of the shift slots filled until staffing increases.
Pegg said he doesn’t expect the fire department to break even on the ambulance service, noting the number that have gone out of business in the Mahoning Valley, but he didn’t expect it to do so.
“That’s the purpose for the levies and the other things that we passed. I would like to see us up around 80%, 85% (return) — I think that’s doable,” Pegg said.
Haddle said following the resolution’s approval that he understood Birch’s goal was to move the fire department forward and clean up the mess, but he wasn’t responsible for it.
“We have to be mindful of that debt, so we still have to balance getting out of it; I understand what you’re trying to do, I really do,” Haddle said. “We collectively up here still have to get ourselves out of that, so we can hit the ground harder.”
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