I haven't written in a while but it is time, to communicate to you. I have been around as many of you as I can lately, asking questions, answering questions etc..
It is no news flash that we are in difficult times. Pressures of staffing, heat, broken units, increased run volume and then we wake up to the Director of Homeland Security Department saying he has a "gut feeling that we may be attacked" gas prices rising and the list goes on, we are all feeling pressure. How do we face it?
As I meet with you I hear a lot of false information and some down right scary rumors. I guess I should not be surprised, after all when information is craved, even wrong information fills the void.
While the list of questions are long, two of the top questions that I am being asked are:
- What are we doing about our staffing needs?
- How can we raise our pay?
Several things are in place to meet these two needs. We will start a class of new hires on the 23rd. Our in house Paramedic class will test soon, and we are preparing for a new Rookie School.
How to fix pay? This will take more than I can write in this small space. It is something that we are working on with great fervor. The Board has a subcommittee looking at several ways to address the issue, We have already raised the issue with the communities we serve.
What I would like to do is this:
Hold Company Meetings these are voluntary, but we will pay you if you attend. It is worth the money to get you together to talk and share with you, the “state of the union"
We are working on a list of dates and will be posting them here as well as in the forms of Memos, pages.
I will give the agenda, and if you would like to see something else addressed, please drop me a line.
