No EMS Today
City hall has a copy of the EMS schedule for the month of October. It was prepared by EMS staff. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week are days with no EMS service at all. Nobody home. Ambulance off. Lights off. I don't want to think about what would happen if someone called 911.
NOTE: This part has been corrected.Marfa staffs its EMS with a combination of part-time and full-time, local and non-local, employed and contracted EMTs. It is a little difficult to present a coherent description. We have EMTs that work full-time in Marfa and EMTs that work full-time in other cities and full-time in Marfa and EMTs that work full-time in other cities and part-time in Marfa. I reported this incorrectly yesterday and will try to correct it here, but still may have it wrong!
There are four EMT positions as Marfa employees. One EMT (employed or contracted?) resigned and has not been replaced. One Marfa EMT is unable to work due to an injury. That leaves us two or three persons as employed and two or three part-time contractors and one volunteer. It appears that as few as one EMT actually lives in Marfa. We pay EMTs from Fort Davis and Presidio to work in Marfa to help fill the 24/7 schedule. Even that is not enough to fill the schedule these days.
If we have one EMT available, we are not allowed by law to send out an ambulance, even if we provide a city driver. An EMT can go in their private car or the city car to the scene of an accident, but we cannot use that shiny ambulance with all the life-saving equipment and supplies. The single first-responder can stabilize the victim until an ambulance comes from Fort Davis or Presidio. It is Mr. Sauceda's intention to send an EMT in a city car for fifteen days this month if we have no variance.
From the 1930s until 1970, ambulance service in Texas was handled primarily by funeral homes according to the states EMS history. Now the state dares to tell us we cannot send a city ambulance and a certified EMT to help someone who may be dying if the ambulance is driven by a city employee or a member of the Marfa VFD! We applied for a variance a couple of weeks ago. It is working its way up the bureaucratic chain of Texas EMS. Until they grant us this emergency variance for emergency medical services, they threaten to punish us for helping fellow citizens!
Here is the calendar for October. I started with the official calendar which lists the EMT employee number for each day and replaced that with an easy to read color-coded system. Any day that has white space is a day that we cannot field an ambulance. There are three days with ZERO EMTs, and one day with no EMT for part of the day. Then there are FIFTEEN days where we cannot run an ambulance because of state law until we get the variance. NOTE: I was mistaken in the previous version of this. It is complicated. Erik Hernandez is an EMT from Presidio but also a Marfa EMT employee. Jesse Pena has a full-time job in Fort Davis but is also a full-time employee of Marfa and is co-director of EMS with Bert but he works less than full-time under a deal to make him co-director. The other Presidio EMTs are contract employees.
EMS law is described in Chapter 773 of the Texas Health & Safety Code. The purpose of law is to keep yahoos from purchasing an ambulance and rushing to accidents without required training. The state also licenses barbers. It is a good idea. But in this case, the state is telling us we cannot send a certified EMT in our own ambulance until they give us a variance which they are dragging their feet on.
I spoke with Brett Hart the EMS Compliance Manager in Austin, He said that if a complaint were filed, the review board would certainly consider our circumstances. He didn't give us permission, he does not have that authority, but he seemed sympathetic to our situation and the good faith we exercised in applying for a variance. I asked about temporary contract EMT availability. He said that there are many certified EMTs in El Paso and Midland/Odessa that we might hire to have two on staff until we get a permanent position. He gave me the name of Raul Guerrero in El Paso who is in charge of compliance for this region. I spoke with him today. He seemed much less flexible. He immediately started talking about Marfa's problem of not paying EMTs a competitive wage. Mr. Guerrero was at the September 12th council meeting and is the one that filed our variance request with Austin. I discussed the tradeoff of sending an ambulance with one EMT against the law versus following the law and not sending the ambulance. As much as he was understanding, he was more officious. I asked who would initiate a complaint. He said any citizen could. Who in Marfa is against sending an ambulance with one EMT and a good driver instead of not sending the ambulance??? Then he said that he visits the city from time to time and reviews the log books and if he saw that we even had an ambulance ready to mobilize without two EMTs he would file a complaint and start an investigation. Gee, thanks for the help, state employee. He talked about serious jeopardy for non-compliance and seemed to care less about the jeopardy of an injured citizen! Mr. Guerrero is the one who put the "scare" into Mr. Sauceda that created this EMS stand-down situation.
We have a long-term EMS problem and an immediate EMS problem. There are those that are willing to use the immediate EMS problem as a tool to fix the long-term problem. I am horrified to think that a city or state employee would risk the safety of a citizen as a way to negotiate better pay for EMTs. I agree that we need to fund EMS better. I agree that they need to be paid a living wage. But there are right ways and wrong ways to do this. As far as I am concerned, this October schedule is a way to use the system to strike for better pay. I have nothing but respect and admiration and appreciation for the EMTs that serve us. Marfans have a responsibility to make sure they are paid a fair wage. But this whole process has become too politicized for my taste.
Long term solutions all involve paying EMTs a living wage. We can do this through an increase in the voluntary surcharge. Council did not pass this on Friday because of a lack of quorum. We could create an EMS tax district. We could privatize EMS. So far, we have done very very little.
Short term solutions include getting a variance, hiring contract EMTs, and fielding an ambulance with a city employee and a certified EMT until we get this fixed. In this case, the law is less important. I don't understand how a mayor and administrator can disobey so many laws relating to taxes, budgets, spending and construction, and then turn around and refuse to send an ambulance because of a legal technicality.
I have called Austin again. Maxie Bishop is the State EMS Director who is handling our variance. He is out of office until October 10. Steve Janda is above him as the Unit Director for EMS and Trauma. I am trying to light a fire under their office chairs to get the variance rolling. I have given up on David and Flo. They seem to wear fire-retardant clothing to work. Call up our city hall. Call up the state EMS department. Call up your representative. Government is letting us down. This really is a life and death situation.
NOTE: This part has been corrected.Marfa staffs its EMS with a combination of part-time and full-time, local and non-local, employed and contracted EMTs. It is a little difficult to present a coherent description. We have EMTs that work full-time in Marfa and EMTs that work full-time in other cities and full-time in Marfa and EMTs that work full-time in other cities and part-time in Marfa. I reported this incorrectly yesterday and will try to correct it here, but still may have it wrong!
There are four EMT positions as Marfa employees. One EMT (employed or contracted?) resigned and has not been replaced. One Marfa EMT is unable to work due to an injury. That leaves us two or three persons as employed and two or three part-time contractors and one volunteer. It appears that as few as one EMT actually lives in Marfa. We pay EMTs from Fort Davis and Presidio to work in Marfa to help fill the 24/7 schedule. Even that is not enough to fill the schedule these days.
If we have one EMT available, we are not allowed by law to send out an ambulance, even if we provide a city driver. An EMT can go in their private car or the city car to the scene of an accident, but we cannot use that shiny ambulance with all the life-saving equipment and supplies. The single first-responder can stabilize the victim until an ambulance comes from Fort Davis or Presidio. It is Mr. Sauceda's intention to send an EMT in a city car for fifteen days this month if we have no variance.
From the 1930s until 1970, ambulance service in Texas was handled primarily by funeral homes according to the states EMS history. Now the state dares to tell us we cannot send a city ambulance and a certified EMT to help someone who may be dying if the ambulance is driven by a city employee or a member of the Marfa VFD! We applied for a variance a couple of weeks ago. It is working its way up the bureaucratic chain of Texas EMS. Until they grant us this emergency variance for emergency medical services, they threaten to punish us for helping fellow citizens!
Here is the calendar for October. I started with the official calendar which lists the EMT employee number for each day and replaced that with an easy to read color-coded system. Any day that has white space is a day that we cannot field an ambulance. There are three days with ZERO EMTs, and one day with no EMT for part of the day. Then there are FIFTEEN days where we cannot run an ambulance because of state law until we get the variance. NOTE: I was mistaken in the previous version of this. It is complicated. Erik Hernandez is an EMT from Presidio but also a Marfa EMT employee. Jesse Pena has a full-time job in Fort Davis but is also a full-time employee of Marfa and is co-director of EMS with Bert but he works less than full-time under a deal to make him co-director. The other Presidio EMTs are contract employees.
EMS law is described in Chapter 773 of the Texas Health & Safety Code. The purpose of law is to keep yahoos from purchasing an ambulance and rushing to accidents without required training. The state also licenses barbers. It is a good idea. But in this case, the state is telling us we cannot send a certified EMT in our own ambulance until they give us a variance which they are dragging their feet on.
I spoke with Brett Hart the EMS Compliance Manager in Austin, He said that if a complaint were filed, the review board would certainly consider our circumstances. He didn't give us permission, he does not have that authority, but he seemed sympathetic to our situation and the good faith we exercised in applying for a variance. I asked about temporary contract EMT availability. He said that there are many certified EMTs in El Paso and Midland/Odessa that we might hire to have two on staff until we get a permanent position. He gave me the name of Raul Guerrero in El Paso who is in charge of compliance for this region. I spoke with him today. He seemed much less flexible. He immediately started talking about Marfa's problem of not paying EMTs a competitive wage. Mr. Guerrero was at the September 12th council meeting and is the one that filed our variance request with Austin. I discussed the tradeoff of sending an ambulance with one EMT against the law versus following the law and not sending the ambulance. As much as he was understanding, he was more officious. I asked who would initiate a complaint. He said any citizen could. Who in Marfa is against sending an ambulance with one EMT and a good driver instead of not sending the ambulance??? Then he said that he visits the city from time to time and reviews the log books and if he saw that we even had an ambulance ready to mobilize without two EMTs he would file a complaint and start an investigation. Gee, thanks for the help, state employee. He talked about serious jeopardy for non-compliance and seemed to care less about the jeopardy of an injured citizen! Mr. Guerrero is the one who put the "scare" into Mr. Sauceda that created this EMS stand-down situation.
We have a long-term EMS problem and an immediate EMS problem. There are those that are willing to use the immediate EMS problem as a tool to fix the long-term problem. I am horrified to think that a city or state employee would risk the safety of a citizen as a way to negotiate better pay for EMTs. I agree that we need to fund EMS better. I agree that they need to be paid a living wage. But there are right ways and wrong ways to do this. As far as I am concerned, this October schedule is a way to use the system to strike for better pay. I have nothing but respect and admiration and appreciation for the EMTs that serve us. Marfans have a responsibility to make sure they are paid a fair wage. But this whole process has become too politicized for my taste.
Long term solutions all involve paying EMTs a living wage. We can do this through an increase in the voluntary surcharge. Council did not pass this on Friday because of a lack of quorum. We could create an EMS tax district. We could privatize EMS. So far, we have done very very little.
Short term solutions include getting a variance, hiring contract EMTs, and fielding an ambulance with a city employee and a certified EMT until we get this fixed. In this case, the law is less important. I don't understand how a mayor and administrator can disobey so many laws relating to taxes, budgets, spending and construction, and then turn around and refuse to send an ambulance because of a legal technicality.
I have called Austin again. Maxie Bishop is the State EMS Director who is handling our variance. He is out of office until October 10. Steve Janda is above him as the Unit Director for EMS and Trauma. I am trying to light a fire under their office chairs to get the variance rolling. I have given up on David and Flo. They seem to wear fire-retardant clothing to work. Call up our city hall. Call up the state EMS department. Call up your representative. Government is letting us down. This really is a life and death situation.
posted by RobC at 12:25 PM
30 Comments:
As a follow-up, Mr. Sauceda had no idea when the variance would come in. He mentioned Mr. Guerrero's legal threat as a reason to shut down our EMS. Mr. Guerrero says there are about 500 certified EMTs in El Paso. Has Lanman or Sauceda made one call to find a contract EMT for the short-term? I asked Mr. Sauceda why there was no Marfa EMT on the schedule after October 22nd. He was not even aware of that schedule situation and certainly had no reply.
I think I made a mistake on the chart. I put Jesse Peña down as Fort Davis, when he is employed by Marfa but lives in Fort Davis.
I have forwarded this article to Pete Gallego and Carlos Uresti.
Pete's email is
pete.gallego@house.state.tx.us
Carlos Uresti, who replaced Frank Madla.
curesti@ghf-lawfirm.com
There was a public hospital in Alpine and a Hospital District tax for Marfa residents. Then the for profit hospital opened and the new hospital was to keep 2 clinics open, one in Alpine and one in Presidio County and the tax money was to be used for indigent care.
Now the clinic in Marfa is called Presidio County Health Services spearheaded by Kate W. According to the newspaper the doctor and his employees in the City of Presidio are now becoming employees of PCHS. PCHS is to get a grant for a new building in Presidio. The hospital in Alpine is wanting to contribute $4000 a month the PCHS, both clinics as I understand it. $48,000 a year.
How much in dollars does Marfa the City of Presidio and Presidio County each contribute to the Hospital District? How much do each cause in indigent care?
Is this a good deal for us? Or would that tax money be better used for EMS? Anybody know the numbers?
What should the EMS be making per hour? What are the pay scales in Presidio and Ft Davis? Seems that should be the place to start.
Regarding poll of Marfa priorities. Find out where the money went last year. Prioritize everything. Back to the basics, water, sewer, fire, EMS first. Then the Youth Club, golf course, ect
There was a meeting this afternoon at city hall with department heads to work on the budget. Heaven only knows what heppened.
According to the El Paso EMS Compliance Officer, the pay range in El Paso is $35,000 to $40,000 per year with benefits.
Regading the meeting with department heads, they have a day to find $70,000 in budget cuts, even though we will have more tax revenue than last year. No cuts from the half a million dollar admin budget because there is no excess there. Hmmmmm?
Regading the meeting with department heads, they have a day to find $70,000 in budget cuts, even though we will have more tax revenue than last year. No cuts from the half a million dollar admin budget because there is no excess there. Hmmmmm?
Does Flo get his 4% raise?
Wonder if that illegal raise will get cut out of Municipal Court budget?
In the ever continuing blame game at city hall, the Mayor and flo are telling the department heads that it is Leo's and Lorina's fault that the budget got derailed.
Sometimes David blames council members.
Sometimes David blames "malcontents."
Never does he take responsibility.
David Lanamn: Budget Officer 2 years now
David Lanman: Failed to pass a budget 2 years
David Lanman: Failed to raise taxes 2 years
David Lanman: Failed to fight for employee raises.
David Lanman: Gave Flo $15,000 raise with Dobay.
David Lanamn: Supports $2600 more for Flo.
Yes, Flo proposed a 4 percent raise for himself. That would be $2600 more for a three and two-half day work week.
The Mayor and The Flo need to look in the mirror if they are going to blame somebody. Their failure to listen to reason is why they are in this predicament--not because two Council members could not make it to the meeting. This issue should've been taken care of many moons ago. The Tres Amigos have done nothing to make the City any better. In fact, they have made things worse. Hopefully, Lanman, The Flo, and the Ex-Mayor-Turned-City Councilman all get thrown out of City Hall in the near future. We can only hope...
I heard that Lanman is telling the dept heads that their departments are in shambles and their pay raises are not to be due to three "malcontents." Last time I counted, there was a WHOLE TOWN FULL of malcontents!! Look around you David. Where are all the people who were chanting for you in the streets during May 05?
Yup, three "malcontents" have taken over city hall. Who was asleep at the wheel to let these three citizens take over city hall like that? Where was our homeland defender David Lanman with his glass walls and wooden gavels to keep these rogues from expressing their opinions using the rights given to them by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution?
Believe me, I wish we had that much power over city hall to control the budget and the administration! If we did, David Lanman would be outta there pretty fast. We don't have the power to stop him from passing the budget. The budget was not adopted because he does not know what he is doing. TWO YEARS IN A ROW! And Marfa citizens and city employees suffer. His response? Scare the department heads and blame others. Look at the law. He is the BUDGET OFFICER according to state law. As far as I can see, he failed his duty as an officer and should be relieved of command. His blaming others for his own failures just shows us his true character.
Why are the so accused "malcontents" malcontent?
malcontent |ˌmalkənˈtent; ˈmalkənˌtent| noun a person who is dissatisfied and rebellious.
Dissatisfied because our public servant is not doing the job he promised to do when he gave his word of honor in an oath.
Rebellious because he abuses his position as moderator of council meetings to silence those that try to speak up.
Believe me, If the malcontents had power over the budget that the mayor says we do, we would be taking away the mayor's travel budget and door budget and Florencio's $15,000 pay raise and giving the city employees raises. The fact is that David gave Flo a $15,000 raise when a four percent raise for employees would only cost $28,000! They bought a $17,500 unmarked police car without budget approval last year. Take away the car and the raise, PRESTO! a four percent raise for all employees except Flo.
When David had the power to take care of the employees with raises, he refused. Instead, he took care of Flo who was talking up a lawsuit against David for death threats. Talk about strange bedfellows in politics!
Believe me, If the malcontents had power over the budget that the mayor says we do, we would be taking away the mayor's travel budget and door budget and Florencio's $15,000 pay raise and giving the city employees raises. The fact is that David gave Flo a $15,000 raise when a four percent raise for employees would only cost $28,000! They bought a $17,500 unmarked police car without budget approval last year. Take away the car and the raise, PRESTO! a four percent raise for all employees except Flo.
When David had the power to take care of the employees with raises, he refused. Instead, he took care of Flo who was talking up a lawsuit against David for death threats. Talk about strange bedfellows in politics!
Let's see! "Why are the'malcontents' malcontent," a curious citizen queried.
Well...
Perhaps they refuse to be content with mismanagement of their hard-earned tax dollars. Perhaps they do not affirm the doling out of illegal payraises to a few chosen FOF (Favorites of Flo). Perhaps they are not satisfied with the lack of transparency in governance at city hall.
Or...
It could be that they are not content with untruthful comments from the present administration. Maybe they are fed up with the lack of responsibility exhibiited at the administrative level. Possibly they can no longer tolerate the high level of dysfunction at the city. Perchance it could be that these "malcontents" are tired of the incompetence of the mayor and his administrator.
Come to think of it, I believe that I,too, should join their ranks of malcontentment!
This is off topic regarding EMS, but on topic regarding budget issues. I found this: "sewerage treatment plant; put on notice by state that a new one is needed at an estimated cost of $4 million"
I was under the impression that all was well with the sewage treatment as long as Marfa was under 5000 population. Does anyone know anything about the State saying Marfa needs a new treatment plant? Any official correspondence?
Here's another homeland security issue. Lanman got all cranked up after some Emergency Mgt. meeting a couple of months ago and tried to get the county Emergency Mgt. Coordinator fired because she wouldn't schedule a workshop on his demand. Well, that workshop has been scheduled after the proper protocols have been followed and training has been conducted and Lanman was informed it was to be held on October 25. But he can't go because he is on vacation. A month's vacation while the city goes up in smoke. Nero fiddling....
Another "don't the Mayor make ya proud story." After the public outcry over the expenditure of taxpayers' dollars on the door, Lanman was heard to remard as he went out the door, "Well, I'm off to spend some hardearned taxpayers dollars on breakfast."
Wonder why he was so anxious to get training? No training, no authority, no funding, or what?
And Mr. Sauceda would not let the EMT use the City car if needed,t EMT was going to be using the old police department car and the tires are not good, but that was O.K. as long as Mr. Sauceda had a good car to go find the next free meal.
if only we could scare them into following state plumbing law
You can't wake a man who pretends to sleep.
You can't scare a man that doesn't care.
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