Thursday 28th March 2024

Council votes to pause 911 dispatcher pay increase despite fiscal court, Cave City support

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Joe Trigg, Glasgow City councilperson, speaks at an earlier meeting of the Glasgow City Council. Trigg voiced his support and rationale for moving forward with a pay increase for employees of the Barren-Metcalfe Communications Center. Trigg said in his discussion of moving forward with the pay increase, “the world ain’t built on a fair share.”
(BRENNAN CRAIN)

By Angela Briggs, special to WCLU News

GLASGOW, Ky. — It’s not often government bodies return money once they’ve gotten it, but that is what the Glasgow City Council did at Monday’s meeting. Several 911 dispatchers filled the council chambers at Glasgow City Hall as a possible pay increase for them was discussed.

The council voted at its previous meeting to charge the finance committee with looking at the possibility of signing an interlocal agreement with the Barren County Fiscal Court and the City of Cave City to give the employees of the 911 Dispatch Center a $2/ hour raise.

The Barren County Fiscal Court would provide $50,000 and Cave City would provide $20,000.

Councilmember Wendell Honeycutt, also the finance committee chairperson, said the committee investigated the raises, and decided it “wasn’t fair” to give raises to just one city department.

“There are very strong feelings throughout the city in every department,” Honeycutt said. “I’ve heard from three or four different ones. Everyone feels strongly about it. They all feel they’re entitled to a raise, and they all are. There’s no doubt about it.”

Honeycutt added he felt the council had no choice but to return the money and he made that motion, expressing gratitude for the offer. Councilmember Terry Bunnell seconded the motion.

Bunnell, who also sits on the finance committee, calculated his own math and costs based on call volume. The county would pay 23% of the costs, which equates to approximately $238,000; Cave City would chip in 8%, which is nearly $89,000; and Glasgow’s portion would be 49%, according to Bunnell’s calculations.

“All of these municipalities use the 911 call center, but the City of Glasgow is paying the bill,” Bunnell said.

The interlocal agreement originally calls for a $20,000 input from Cave City and a $50,000 input from the fiscal court. Bunnell did not include Park City in the calculations.

Councilmember Joe Trigg said prior ambulance board issues mimic the situation with the communications operation.

“We’ve been through all of this before sitting here at this body when we had the ambulance board issues, and it was based on everybody saying, ‘what’s my fair share? I should be paying my fair share,’” Trigg said. “The world ain’t built on a fair share.”

The City of Glasgow decided to end its contract around five years ago with Barren-Metcalfe EMS and resigned their two seats on the ambulance board.

Word began to circulate that a large hospital in Bowling Green wanted to purchase the ambulance service and, likely, take every run they could 30 miles south of their hospital. The move would have left T.J. Samson Community Hospital in a tough spot financially.

With over 1300 employees, T.J. is the largest employer in Barren County. A financial impact like that would have led to an uncertain future for the community-based hospital.

The Barren-Metcalfe Ambulance Service was operating “in the red” without Glasgow’s funding. The hospital stepped in and filled the funding gap, which means they have filled the two vacant board seats left behind by the City of Glasgow.

WCLU News confirmed with Fay Neal, chairperson of the ambulance board, that Barren-Metcalfe EMS gets no funding from the City of Glasgow.

Beverly Harbison, director of Barren-Metcalfe EMS, told the council she did not agree funding should be based on call volume. Dispatchers complete other tasks and additional work done is not partial to any of the municipalities.

“We need to start somewhere,” Harbison said. “We’ve been going on this for years and years and years. Everybody wants to put it on the back burner. We’ve got to start somewhere.”

Harold Armstrong, Glasgow mayor, went to bat for the 911 Center employees, noting the difficulty many face when they graduate from the academy and start to work.

“They come back, and they’re certified. They sit on that phone and within two weeks they’ll have a couple calls that just brings them to tears,” Armstrong said. “They may get up and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not cut out for this. I can’t take this.’”

The mayor described the urgency for a pay increase regardless of the way it happens.

“If the pay’s not reasonable enough they’re going to go to Walmart and punch a time clock and not worry about the stresses on them,” Armstrong said.

After nearly an hour of discussion, it came down to a 6-3 vote in favor of returning the money from the other municipalities.

The council has drafted a letter to Cave City and the fiscal court encouraging a more equitable division of costs.

It is unclear if the equitable funding discussions will expand to include entities like the Barren County Health Department, the animal shelter or situations when county agencies assist the city.

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