By Stephen Smoot, The Pendleton Times
“Our organization has recently learned the EMS Salary Enhancement Fund created by the Legislature in 2023 has no funding source in the current FY 2025 and proposed FY 2026 budgets despite spending authorization of $10 million being granted each year. This will result in thousands of EMS workers having their salaries reduced, losing response stipends, or having retention payments cut from their wages.”
This call to action from the West Virginia EMS Coalition comes as a $400 million budget shortfall inherited by new Governor Patrick Morrisey threatens to derail the policy.
The coalition in an earlier release described the increase in costs for licenses, training, and more to agencies and individuals. Even more worrisome, the cost of ambulances and related equipment have gone up significantly in the past several years.
Earlier this month, emergency management officials in Pendleton County brought up the issue with the Pendleton County Commission. Rick Gillespie, emergency services coordinator, shared that the amount of money in that account is “zero.” He added that “there’s been nothing that changed that code.”
Pendleton County, and likely others, allocated the salary enhancement funds as had been established in the previous year, only to find that the funds available for 2025 no longer existed.
