The Morningside Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. would like to once again reiterate that we do not own or operate an Ambulance, through an agreement with Prince Georges County we allowed them to house a PG County owned and operated Ambulance at the Morningside Fire Station. Furthermore, we never have nor intend to request the Ambulance be placed Out Of Service, we are requesting that it be redeployed to an adjacent station. Here are some facts as to why: - Nearly 7 out of 10 emergencies responded to by the PGFD Ambulance housed at the MVFD Fire Station are outside of the MVFD’s Primary Response Area. - PGFD is mandating Volunteer Fire Departments to staff County Owned Ambulances that they in turn bill taxpayers for. - The MVFD will not staff a PGFD Owned Ambulance that they in turn bill for services rendered, it is against our founding principals as volunteers. - A Station Policy that affirms the agreement and was written by a County Fire Department Official, dated May 13, 2006, states that “It should neither be assumed nor expected that MVFD members will participate in the operation of Ambulance 279. The responsibility lies solely on the career shift personnel assigned, detailed or working at Fire Station 27”. In reference to the additional staffing, please see the following facts: - Currently 70% of the funded County Salary Positions assigned to the MVFD Fire Station are vacant. Just in the month of July, the PGFD accrued over 1,000 hours of overtime to staff the funded positions at the MVFD Fire Station. This is only part of the 1.1 million dollars the PGFD paid for over 21,000 hours of overtime to operationally staff the department during the month of July. This will only compound the Prince Georges County fiscal deficit in fiscal year 2014, which is already in excess of 152 million dollars. - Conversely to the County’s rapidly escalating overtime cost, the MVFD has provided over 25,000 man-hours of staffing which equates to more than 1.7 million dollars in taxpayer’s savings so far this year. - Prince Georges County entered into a new agreement with the Professional Firefighters and Paramedics Union, Local 1619, without consulting the stakeholders that would be directly affected by this unilateral change. This new agreement explicitly prohibits the current staffing model that has been successfully utilized at the MVFD Fire Station. Finally, we would like to emphasize that we have been attempting to seek a mutually amicable resolution since November 21, 2013, and were the first ones in the partnership to seek a resolution. See the below point. - The MVFD has been actively seeking a resolution to this matter since November 21, 2012. We have been unable to reach an amicable agreement in these matters and feel that we have been stonewalled by County Officials.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 00:07:45 +0000
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