PEVRS in need of funding
Published 5:00 am Friday, July 12, 2019
A special called meeting between the Farmville Town Council, Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors, representatives from Longwood University, Hampden-Sydney College, Centra Health and Prince Edward Volunteer Rescue Squad (PEVRS) members Tuesday afternoon ended with town council agreeing to move forward to advertise for an executive director for PEVRS.
The joint meeting was called because PEVRS needs assistance in purchasing ambulances and in funding the position of an executive director at the cost of around $100,000.
The Town of Farmville, Longwood University and Hampden-Sydney College have agreed to fund $30,000 each for a one-year commitment for the position.
PEVRS has requested two ambulances as soon as possible and then funding to purchase one ambulance every two years. Each ambulance is estimated to cost approximately $250,000.
Prince Edward County Board of Supervisor Chairman Jim Wilck kicked off the meeting requesting that the county put up a half cash payment with the Town of Farmville putting up the other half of the cash payment for an ambulance that PEVRS is looking at purchasing. Between the ambulance and the executive director position, “we are looking at $350,000, and I’ve called everyone I can think of looking for money,” said Wilck during the meeting.
Wilck went on to say that he reached out to Centra Health CEO Tom Angelo and was told that it was not a good year for them. In a letter read at the meeting from Angelo he said that Centra would like to be a part of the solution. “What we can do now is request monetary support from the Centra Foundation,” the letter cited. “This may occur if we are not the only entity that is financially supporting this endeavor.”
Town Council member Greg Cole spoke up to say that, “this is more than just writing a check. You got a business that is run by a volunteer organization, and over 85 percent of the revenue comes from what they collect. And you’ve got a volunteer executive board that already has a full life of responsibilities that are trying to run a business. If you look at the job description that they created for this executive director, you are crossing some boundaries between volunteers and paid staff workers with them trying to do it all, and I think we need to take a look at the bylaws as well here.”
Cole continued to say that he felt that the squad needed assistance to help get through this transition but the root of the problem needed to be fixed. “We’ve got to change the organization structures, so it is better to operate in today’s environment, and right now their bylaws read pretty much like a civic organization,” he said.
Wilck said he felt there had been “foot-dragging” on the whole situation. Cole disagreed and said there was money in the town’s budget to help but felt the squad needed someone to come on board to help with reorganizing so that they could “stop putting Band-Aids” on the issues. Cole also expressed his concerns about the town putting up cash (all at once) payments for the ambulance.
The discussion shifted back to how to fund the cost of the requested ambulance for PEVRS, and Wilck’s pointed out that 58 percent of the EMS calls that the squad responded to were in the Town of Farmville. “That is not accurate,” said Farmville Town Manager Gerald Spates as he proceeded to show call data collected from the town’s dispatching center.
According to the data, only 44 percent of calls that PEVRS responded to in 2018 were in the town limits. “Are you cherry picking months,” asked Wilck.
Spates told Wilck, “I just gave you the whole year. These are the actual calls that came into the dispatch.”
Wilck said he received his call numbers from a member of the PEVRS.
According to a Fire- EMS committee report from the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors, PEVRS has vehicles that are about nine years old with two of the trucks needing so much work that they stay in the shop more than in service. PEVRS mortgaged their building in 2011 to buy vehicles and still owes more than $400,000 from that loan.
This year the squad has had some members resign, and Wilck expressed his concern about what would happen if this were to continue. “I would like to see something positive come out of this meeting,” said Wilck. “We have a $90,000 commitment but we need a total of $350,000 … will we see more volunteers leave?”
Carol Broadwater, treasurer with PEVRS, answered, “There is a number of us that said we would not continue after this year if we don’t see some type of commitment.” she said. “We are not asking for money for the PEVRS for anything other than to provide the best services for the citizens of Prince Edward County.
Though no final decision was reached at Tuesday’s meeting on how to fund the ambulance, the group did decide to advertise for the position of an executive director for PEVRS.