The Culver Town Council will be taking another step when it comes to reforming their EMS Department.
Discussions continued during a work session meeting, yesterday. The EMS Department has experienced difficulty attracting and retaining volunteers.
Town Council President Ginny Bess Munroe says there’s a role that needs to be worked out for the EMS volunteers.
“The department is still governed by the Town Council and a Director, etc,” says Munroe. “Kind of like the police department. But unlike the police department, you have a volunteer organization that has to be governed within that picture.”
The Town Council has previously decided to advertise for a full-time director’s position to help with the reform process.
After previous discussions to dissolve the volunteer EMS board, a bit of a pushback has been seen where the remaining volunteers still wish to assist.
The Culver Town Council advised attorney Jim Clevenger to begin drafting an ordinance to establish a new ambulance service that will include Union Township. He says things have changed from contracting with the volunteer service.
“The governance of that service was the [volunteer] board and now what’s happened is that’s evolved so that doesn’t work very well and that’s why I’m suggesting that you might want to do it by ordinance,” says Clevenger. “That the governance of your EMS is actually going to be operated by the [Town] Council and the Township folks.”
The Town Council previously adopted Standard Operating Procedures for the department to help with organization.
The draft ordinance will likely come back for further consideration at a work session in April.
