Jon Rose, Athens County Commissioner candidate, held a press conference Thursday evening at the Athens County Board of Election to discuss his campaign.
Rose discussed the urgency of increasing the salaries and wages of Athens' EMT workers. Rose was an EMT worker; however, because of the low wages, he switched jobs and now makes more as a barista.
“I make $18 an hour working at a coffee shop.” Rose said. "Slinging coffee, I make more per hour than I did as a full-time charge medic for the county. That’s sinful.”
Rose said the wages for EMTs have been an ongoing problem for years, and change needs to happen now.
“You haven’t been able to make (EMT wages) make sense for 12 years,” Rose said. “I’m sorry, Charlie, it’s time for you to step down. It’s time for new fresh blood. Time for a new, fresh perspective and somebody who cares about the county to do something about the county.”
During the conference, Rose read several anonymous letters from current and past EMT workers in Athens, in which workers pleaded for a more livable wage.
“I could go serve coffee or drive for Amazon or UPS and work shorter hours, see less trauma and death, and still make more money,” Rose said. “I genuinely love serving my community as a paramedic. I don’t want to lose that. However, the way the commissioners are running our EMS program put that goal in jeopardy.”
Rick Task, the former IAFF Local 5126 union president, represented ACEMS at the conference.
Task worked as an EMT for Athens for many years and expressed anxiety about the job.
“You’re trying to make life-saving decisions, and that little thing is going in the back of your head: am I paying my electric bills this month, or am I buying groceries,” Task said.
Rose also discussed that ACEMS is understaffed and underfunded.
Athens’ EMT system has only six ambulances. During COVID-19, when EMTs were even more understaffed, Charlie Adkins, the current commissioner, resolved to switch to running five ambulances.
“How can we solve the problem,” Rose said. “Let’s pay them an actual living wage…It’s going to help the staffing. It’s going to help with their well-being, their mental, their physical, their families, everybody.”
Rose said that Athens County has not productively funded the EMS system.
“It’s about the financial mismanagement of Athens County,” Rose said. “Athens County EMS was forced to take out a loan to pay for a couple of ambulances.”
Rose explained the implications of the county utilizing a loan to pay for these ambulances.
“The loan had interest,” Rose said. “That interest was paid off by taxpayers … That money could have come from the general fund.”
Rose discussed the negative consequences of this action, as it forced the EMS system to take out a loan and pay that interest back, or it would not have enough money to pay payroll.
“They either broke a contract that didn’t buy the squads that they were contractually obligated to do, or they just didn’t pay payroll, or they didn’t buy equipment, or they didn’t buy anything else necessary for the accounting in order to save lives,” Rose said.
Rose said the underfunding, underpaying and understaffing are not productive or positive for Athens County. There are open positions for EMT workers; however, no one is eager to apply for a low-wage, taxing job, according to Rose.
Marissa Marshall, a former paramedic with Athens County EMS, wrote to Rose. Marshall worked with Athens EMS from 2020 until this past year.
Marshall explained how mentally and physically exhausting the job was for unlivable pay.
“I left mainly because of the pay,” Marshall said in her letter. “As a full-time paramedic with 15 years of experience, I was making just over $18 an hour.”
In her letter, Marshall described how she missed valuable time with her kids and family due to mandated overtime hours.
“My kids were going to grow up thinking I was gone all the time because I didn’t care about them, but it was because I didn’t have a choice,” Marshall said in her letter.
In an email, Rose discussed how he plans to increase wages for paramedics and EMTs in Athens County.
“I will increase the pay for Paramedics and EMTs in Athens county by reallocating wasteful spending, along with updating the billing methods that EMS uses to increase revenue from EMS runs,” Rose said via email.
Rose assured he will not increase taxes to provide better pay for EMT workers.
“I will absolutely not increase taxes because the people in Athens county are already struggling enough as it is,” Rose said via email. “Raising taxes is only going to make living in Athens county more difficult. Seeing as how the cost of living here is already out of control, that is not a viable option.”
Rose ended the conference, emphasizing that these changes must be implemented now.
“If you want an ambulance to show up when your loved one is dying … we need to fix this problem now, not later, now, because later is going to be too late,” Rose said.
