The original staffing model of the ambulance operations of the City of San Luis Fire Department was based on the hiring and availability of 18 part-time Firefighter/Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs). 

Our optimism to recruit enough personnel to staff our ambulances proved to be problematic and vacant part-time positions have been staffed with full-time firefighters and has resulted in overtime wages being incurred.  Additionally, recent input and advice from Human Resources has curtailed or limited our ability to utilize (schedule) part-time firefighters for shifts.

We had planned on staffing three (3) ambulances but the limited recruitment of part-time firefighters and the impacts of overtime staffing has prompted the reality that we cannot staff three (3) ambulances without incurring additional salary costs.  FY17 budget allocations for part-time firefighters would have been sufficient to staff three (3) ambulances, we do not have the depth of personnel to fill the positions, without using overtime for full-time firefighters.

The budgeted salary funds are sufficient to cover the overtime salaries of full-time firefighters, but will require transfer between the appropriate accounts.  Additional review of these funds (part-time firefighter’s salaries) has identified sufficient funds to allow the hiring of full-time firefighters to staff our ambulances. 

The provided spread sheet has the remaining funds in the part-time firefighter salary account and the amount needed to hire 6 full-time firefighters.  We are requesting City Council approval and authority to;
• Transfer available funds from the part-time firefighter account to the overtime account to cover existing expenditures,
 Recruit and hire 6 full-time Firefighter/EMTs from our existing cadre of part-time firefighters,
• Transfer available funds for the part-time firefighter salary account to the full-time firefighter salary account to pay these full-time firefighters.

The full-time firefighters, being paid from the Ambulance Enterprise funds, would be allocated to the Ambulance Enterprise program.  This means that should the ambulance program go away in future years, these positions would also go away, until such time as this stipulation is deemed unnecessary.