The Carroll County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously this (Monday) morning to approve a new Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 agreement with the Carroll County Professional Paramedics Association. According to EMS Director Jamie Wuebker, the negotiation contract has very little to do with actual pay; instead, it clarifies the department’s convoluted base and duty-hour schedule.
Carroll County EMS’s full-time staff work a mix of on-call and duty hours throughout the year, which can be confusing when calculating overtime. Under the new agreement, EMS staff will work 1,584 duty hours, 168 overtime hours, and 1,752 on-call hours in one year. Wuebker adds they did adjust pay for the highest classification of emergency medical technician (EMT), but the impact on the budget was functionally minimal, as it is unusual for the department to have full-time staff who are not licensed paramedics.
The adjustments to EMT pay bring Carroll County in line with its neighboring counties. Supervisors Mike Andersen and Mark McCrea handled negotiations from the county’s side. They say it might not seem like much on paper, but the new agreement better reflects the hours EMS staff actually work.
In a worst-case scenario involving the county’s highest-tier paramedic, who also worked every single holiday, the resulting change in pay would equate to an approximately 4.5 percent increase. However, the reality is much lower than that. The supervisors voted 4-0 to accept the agreement, which will go into effect at the beginning of FY27 on July 1. The board is expected to make pay decisions on non-union/non-bargaining personnel and elected officials at a special Jan. 20 meeting next week.
