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The budget currently under review by Oxford City Council may allow the Oxford Fire Department to add three part-time firefighter-EMTs to its staff, creating 24-hour in-station emergency assistance.
"Council is looking at funding to put three guys on at night starting the beginning of next year," Oxford Fire Chief John Detherage said.
According to City Manager Doug Elliott, the additional staff will put the city in a budget deficit if the current proposed budget is passed.
"The additional cost will be $300,000 that we will be adding to our budget at the request of council," Elliott said. "This will mean that the operating budget will show a net deficit of just under $500,000."
According to Elliott, the city has some extra money not used in the budget and not currently assigned a specific use that can provide the necessary funding.
Detherage said the decision will cost the fire department some equipment, such as a defibrillator and laptops for some of the trucks, but he said he had to choose what would be most beneficial.
"They wanted to cut our operating budget, but I requested that they take it out of our capital improvement budget," Detherage said.
According to Detherage and Elliott, the staff position additions follow a plan enacted in 2008 to bring on three firefighter-EMTs for the first shift from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The new plan will create a second shift to serve from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
"What we found when we brought the first shift on was that we were able to improve our response times overall on the average by about three and a half minutes," Elliott said. "We would expect a similar improvement in our response times on the second shift."
Elliott said the change will be an improvement to the current system.
"Presently we rely on volunteers to come in when an alarm sounds or we have a call to respond to for EMS," Elliott said. "Council felt this was very important to move ahead to address the staffing and response times on the second shift so we are moving forward with that."
Current part-time firefighter-EMS Michael Pickering said he has seen the department progress since he entered it in October 2007.
"We've gone from a full volunteer fire department … to a volunteer fire department with subsidized staff from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the week," Pickering said.
Pickering said the proposed changes will benefit the Oxford community.
"This will be guaranteed response for 24(-hour) on-station assistance," Pickering said. "But we will still be relying heavily on volunteers to subsidize emergency responses."
Pickering said volunteers will be needed when there are multiple emergencies at once or the department needs assistance.
Another benefit Pickering noted is the ability paramedics will have to respond to medical emergencies when needed. Pickering said this will be an improvement from the current basic life support system in place.
"That will be something great that will come with the 24-hour shift change," Pickering said.
City council will review the proposed budget at its Nov. 3 meeting with its first reading. According to Elliott, a vote will be taken at the following meeting and if it is passed Oxford will begin fiscal year 2010 with the budget in place.
