The emergency response: Try again

Draft county fire, rescue agreement needs CPR

The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors found itself in the middle of another fire-and-rescue-related conflagration at its monthly meeting Monday afternoon at the courthouse.

At least 10 emergency responders were already in the room; injuries were thus minimal and mostly pride-related. The most notable casualty was County Attorney Peter Luke’s draft revision of the county’s 18-year-old fire and rescue agreement. In the end, it was transported to a committee.

The supervisors also unanimously passed resolutions Monday promoting Deborah Keyser, officially the deputy county administrator, to county administrator as of May 1, and entering a two- year contract with her (at $95,000 the first year, $100,000 the second). At the request of both Keyser and her longtime predecessor, John McCarthy, the supervisors also demoted McCarthy to deputy administrator for the last two months of his final contract, during which time he will be taking accumulated leave.

The supervisors also approved hiring McCarthy as a consultant, primarily on zoning issues, for a year. His compensa-

tion would be $1 a month (payable annually), but he would be allowed to keep his health insurance for as long as he served in the capacity. McCarthy retires June 30 after serving nearly 30 years as the county administrator.

The consulting post is not the same as the position of deputy county administrator mentioned in several recent budget workshops. Keyser had asked the supervisors last month to consider keeping a half-year’s salary in the budget for a possible deputy — who most believe would serve as zoning administrator — but it’s unclear, she said this week, whether that line item would remain in the fiscal year 2017 budget, which goes into effect July 1.

FIRE, RESCUE, TRIAGE

Luke’s draft of proposed changes to the ordinance affecting the county’s fire-andrescue agreement — which allows the county’s seven volunteer fire and rescue companies to be compensated and protected for carrying out their duties — was tabled, as was a revision of the county’s two-year-old EMS Cost Recovery ordinance, which allows the county to bill the insurance companies of those requiring an ambulance trip.

Monday was the latest struggle in a difficult, years-long process to keep Rappahannock’s all-volunteer emergency services healthy enough to meet the increased demands (particularly for emergency medical services) of an aging population amid the twin pressures of decreasing funds on one side, and ever harder-to-find, costlier-to-train volunteers on the other.

The committee, yet to be formed, would ostensibly work out the details of any future agreement between the county and its volunteer fire and rescue companies. It would, as suggested by Jackson District supervisor Ron Frazier and several others at the head table, consist of five or six members, including at least two supervisors and representatives of the county’s fire and rescue association, and possibly an interested citizen or two.

Before the proposed changes to the agreement even came up on the agenda Monday, disagreement rose amid the unusually crowded benches of the courthouse during the top-of-the-agenda public comment period.

“The proposed ordinance and included services agreement is bad for all parties involved,” read Page Glennie from a prepared statement. Glennie is an Amissville resident who has served on the Fire Levy Board (which administers the county’s fire levy, an addition to the property tax rate meant to help fund emergency crews).

“It does not address the root issues,” Glennie said. “Consequently it does not resolve the undocumented assumptions and understandings plaguing the situation. I believe it will only intensify the animosity between the parties.”

Glennie suggested the fire and EMS agreement be part of a “properly structured services agreement,” and that the county “establish an independent third party with service contracting experience” to develop it.

He also said the county should “get out of the EMS cost-recovery business” and allow the volunteer companies to handle insurance billing themselves — something that Amissville Volunteer Fire and Rescue began doing last year.

Amissville has had an ongoing dispute with the county over some $38,000 in insurance billing done, apparently mistakenly, by the county’s billing vendor Fidelis, for the transport of patients from areas outside Rappahannock County’s borders. (About 40 percent of Amissville’s calls are to addresses in Culpeper County.) The supervisors voted in January to return that money to Medicare and other insurers (rather than pass it on to Amissville) because the Cost Recovery Ordinance does not give the county authority to bill for transports that start in other counties.

(This is what the Monday’s amendment to the EMS Cost Recovery Ordinance was meant to fix; it adds the ability for the county to bill for out-of-county transports — which Luke said needs to be done before the county can negotiate, or renegotiate, any of its mutual-aid agreements with surrounding jurisdictions.)

REACTION HEATS UP

J. B. Carter Jr., chief of the Amissville company, echoed the statements of several fire and rescue officials in the crowd when he said several parts of the proposed new fire and rescue agreement appeared “punitive” — in particular a draft clause that specified that any equipment the county had paid for would, if the company should be dis- solved or disbanded, revert to the county.

“Just this past week, I spent 27 hours training volunteers how to drive EMS vehicles and fire vehicles, responding to calls, fundraising. . . . And then when I started reading this,” Carter said, referring to Luke’s draft, posted online to the county’s website about a week and a half earlier, “I had to spend another six hours just reading it and then calling other people to find out what their thoughts were on it.

“Again,” Carter added, “this is not the way to go about having a contract with the volunteer fire and rescue companies.”

“We,” said Frank Huff, chief of Flint Hill’s volunteer company, waving toward Bill Welch, the longtime company member seated next to him, “are prepared to sign no such agreement, as presented.”

Frazier, Amissville’s supervisor, had the strongest reaction to the ordinance draft among his colleagues at the head table. “I don’t know where this came from,” he said. (Supervisor chair Roger Welch of Wakefield district chimed in: “This is the first time I’m seeing this also.”)

“If you look at the writeup [of the ordinance], this is a policy statement,” Frazier added, “and, well, if this governing body considered this already, I don’t know about it. And if not, it looks like someone has overstepped their authority.”

Frazier suggested later that the county — or the committee that Keyser was later charged with convening — consider the fire and rescue agreements of surrounding communities. He cited language from Fauquier County’s version, which he said codified the “mutual appreciation” that “ought to exist between the county and our volunteers.”

“We expect our volunteers to be smart enough to respond to any sort of emergency and know what to do in every case,” Frazier said, “but then we think they’re dumb enough to sign an agreement like this?”

Stonewall- Hawthorne supervisor Chris Parrish agreed with Hampton supervisor John Lesinski that, as Parrish put it, “this is the process” to make changes to an ordinance. “I see no threat, on the surface; the agreement basically establishes a chain of command,” Parrish added.

“This was on the agenda for discussion,” Lesin- ski said. “We might decide to throw all of this out, but at least we are making a start to the process.”

Later, when the supervisors were working out the creation of an ad hoc committee to hammer out the agreement with fire and rescue companies, Lesinski said, “But isn’t this really what the fire and rescue association’s role should be— to provide guidance here? I don’t understand why we have to get a whole other lot of folks involved.”

“Just because they’re on the fire and rescue association doesn’t mean they have contract negotiation and writing abilities,” said Frazier. “I wouldn’t want to write a contract, but I can read one well enough to know I wouldn’t want to sign that thing. I’d throw the keys on the table and walk out, that’s what I’d do.”

At that point, at least one firefighter in the audience held up his keys.

“I think the fact is, we have a problem,” said Roger Welch, addressing Lesinski. “And what’s been happening in the past hasn’t fixed it. And this [the committee] is a step back in the right direction. And if it comes from the same people, maybe even the same people on the fire and rescue association, it won’t make any difference — we’ve got to do something to fix this.”

‘A POSITIVE STEP’

At the supervisors’ evening meeting, the board voted unanimously, after a brief discussion and several mostly positive comments from first responders and others in the much smaller audience, a measure that will allow volunteers to receive a voucher good for up to $574 payable toward their annual personal property tax bill.

Fire chiefs would be asked to designate annually which of their volunteers are “active,” thus enabling the members to receive the benefit. (The $574 allows the county to also exempt volunteers from the county’s annual motor vehicle license fee, believed to be going up next year from $20 to $25, and still remain below the $600 threshold requiring the issuance of a 1099 IRS form.)

Both Carter and Sperryville Volunteer Rescue Squad’s Harold Beebout rose to say the credit was “a positive step,” but to also encourage the supervisors to continue thinking of ways to persuade volunteers to come forward — especially, as Beebout said, younger volunteers.