By Brian Haytcher
Star Beacon
NORTH KINGSVILLE Ohio — The North Kingsville Fire Department has asked village residents to come to a meeting on July 17 to voice their opinions after the village ended part-time EMS staffing, effective July 5.
According to a statement posted to social media by the fire department, the decision was made with no communication or input from members of the fire department.
The statement said the village will not have EMS staff on duty from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., and eight people have lost their jobs.
In November 2023, village voters approved a two-mill ambulance levy, 639 votes to 540, according to the Ashtabula County Board of Elections.
The fire department statement said funds from the levy won’t begin to be collected until 2025.
Mayor Terrance McConnell said in 2022, when the initial decision was made to start having part-time EMS staffing, it was to be on a temporary basis.
“It was done on a trial basis,” he said. “Up until 2022, the rescue squad and the fire department have been volunteers all along, and they’ve done a wonderful job as volunteers.
“Well, they went to this paid rescue squad, trying to keep people there, and the thing is, it’s cost us money. The expenditures of having somebody there, versus what was coming in, was not feasible.”
Before the village started the paid department, there was about $100,000 in the rescue squad fund, McConnell said.
“In 2022, in September, they went to a paid rescue squad, and we went down to $84,000 in 2022,” he said. “In 2023, we were down to $17,000 in funds. So it was not feasible to be doing this, because we were not getting the revenue in for the expenditures.”
There were supposed to be quarterly evaluations about the feasibility of the project, McConnell said.
“For some reason, I guess the quarterly evaluations quit happening, so nobody knew what the finances were, because nobody was checking up on it in the previous administration,” he said.
If those evaluations would have continued, he said the village would have realized in 2023 the operation was not sustainable.
McConnell said sometimes there was only one person on staff, which meant they could not respond to calls.
He said things could change when the levy funds start flowing in.
“If we start now, looking into what caused this downfall, and what we could do to improve it or how we could make it work, I’m willing to do that with the chief,” he said. “I can probably get the head of fire and police, we could get a committee, and we could re-evaluate this thing, and see if it’s feasible.
“But these comments that are being made upset me, because for, I’m going to say at least 70 years or so, this has been a volunteer fire department and rescue squad, and has worked successfully, and all of the sudden we go to being paid, and it’s not working.”
McConnell said he came into office in 2024, so he was not here for the start of the current situation.
“That’s why I had to do what I had to do, I had to tell them there’s no money for payroll,” he said.
The department is paid for transports, he said.
“Hopefully we can bring it back, there are no guarantees for anything,” McConnell said.
Village Council was left with a difficult decision, he said.
“It’s unfortunate that it didn’t work at this point,” McConnell said. “It was a trial basis, and we’ve re-evaluated it, and it’s not supporting itself, which I was told, between the last administration and the fire department and rescue squad, that this would be a trial basis, and if it didn’t work, it didn’t work, that it had to be self-supporting, and it’s not.”
The statement from the fire department encouraged village residents to come to the July 17 meeting and advocate for the return of part-time EMS staffing.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m. at North Kingsville village hall.
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