Pender EMS merger
Last year, due to the increased demand on emergency services in the area, Pender County commissioners voted 3-2 to take on the responsibility of all Pender County and Penderlea fire and emergency services, at an estimated cost of $1.8 million per year, mostly in additional personnel.
Commissioner Jimmy Tate and former commissioner Brad George, who resigned from the Board of Commissioners earlier this year, dissented.
As part of a unified Emergency Services Department, staff from Pender County, Pender EMS & Fire, Penderlea Fire, and Maple Hill Fire held meetings twice a month, since last June, to identify and complete tasks prior to the effective date of the merger — which was originally scheduled for July 1, 2026.
“The merger took effect on Sunday, July 5th, and that date was chosen because that was the beginning of the payroll instead of July 1st,” said Emergency Services Director Rick Sauer.
The merger doesn’t affect existing municipal departments like Burgaw and Surf City’s police and fire departments. However a bulk of services previously handled by Pender EMS & Fire — a nonprofit that managed and dispatched EMS personnel, a portion of which were volunteers — will now be handled by the county directly.
This includes funding for personnel training and logistical matters.
“We onboarded all of the employees, the full-time and part-time employees, also some volunteers,” Assistant Pender County Manager Sarah Fulton said. “So the full-time and part-time employees became county employees. They were provided with competitive pay and benefits.”
Fulton briefed the commissioners on the number of tasks that have been completed prior to the effective date of the merger.
Those completed tasks includes staff onboarding, updating personnel and insurance policies, and getting relevant licensing up-to-date.
“So we needed to update our personnel policy to include things that were specific to first responders,” Fulton said. “Whether that's the NFPA [National Fire Protection Association] physicals, things related to 24-hour shifts, different accrual rates, lots and lots of policies.”
The transfer of property deeds and titles, implementing new scheduling software, and transferring emails remain ongoing tasks, she said.
Aside from the rising costs of equipment, Director Sauer said staffing remains one of the biggest challenges for his department, noting that prior to the merger, 26 firefighters and 26 EMS employees left the department.
As an aside, Sauer remarked on the department’s ability to manage several major incidents despite this loss.
“Actually, July 4th, about an hour before the merger took effect, Surf City had a pretty large fire that evening,” Sauer said. “Lots of mutual aid came in, and we had no problems with that. There was also a bomb threat that evening, and there was no interruption in services.”
The following morning, roughly 215 employees underwent orientation for emergency services, he said. A new fire division chief was announced as well.
However, these were existing employees who “came over” and were now under a new classification as county employees. The vacancies within the department still existed, and workers were still stretched thin, according to Sauer.
“We've hired a couple more people, we've had a couple resignations, so that's about average, and it's maintained,” he said. “The results are that the staff is working a lot of overtime, they're getting burned out, they're getting tired, and that's caused some concern.”
“There's been times where we've had to shut down an ambulance or shut down a firehouse because we just didn't have the staffing,” Sauer said.
Sauer’s hopeful that the department will be able to gain more recruits with their current 21-week fire and EMS training program, along with a three-week course on fire truck driving and operation.
He said 15 out of 21 recruits from the EMS training program are on track to graduate on October 23. Seven people have already graduated from the fire apparatus engineering training.
There are still three captain positions open, which Sauer said offers for these positions have been sent out to three applicants.
Sauer also said responses to the department’s call for EMS applicants signals that there is a strong interest within the county in this type of work.
“For EMS orientation, we asked for some paramedics and EMTs to apply. We had about over 100 applicants, which was very surprising and very good,” Sauer said.
View the full EMS merger presentation here.
Delayed Appointments
A major point of contention stirred up earlier in the meeting when a motion to appoint an interim commissioner, raised by Commissioner Jimmy Tate, received no second from any of the other commissioners.
Current Pender County Board of Education member Beth Burns was recommended to fill the vacant District 1 seat following Brad George’s resignation on August 1.
Burns self-nominated for the position, running against Shayne Frey, the Republican nominee running for the same seat in the upcoming midterm election.
The decision to appoint Burns came following what’s been reported by Port City Daily as a 15-14 vote on August 20, by the Pender County Republican Party executive committee.
At Tuesday’s meeting, after Tate’s motion to appoint Burns to the vacant District 1 seat died, Commissioner Brent Springer motioned to table the appointment until litigation was completed.
Springer’s motion passed in a 3-1 vote, with Tate dissenting.
The board’s attorney advised Tate that “a challenge to the validity of the recommendation” was made. According to the newly appointed County Attorney Ryan Bostic, an appeal of the opinion and a demand for arbitration was filed.
When Tate asked who made the challenge, Chair Randy Burton suggested Tate review an email that was sent out to the commissioners detailing the specifics of the challenge.
Tate went on expressing his disappointment at his fellow commissioners for not backing his motion.
“Pender County is going to be known for one thing that’s legal complaints,” Tate said. “If they cannot get you out of office, what they're trying to do is, in my opinion, use the justice system and justifiably to get people out of office. And I don’t think it’s right.”
He continued, “it's not right for her to sit out here tonight. The GOP ruled on this several weeks ago. I'm just asking the board to get over your personal feelings with people in our organization and let's do the people's business. They voted, we need to move forward with this.”
As Tate said, this is yet another delay in Burns’ appointment.
Since Burns was tapped for the appointment in August, two prior challenges were filed in response.
The first challenge regarded Burns holding seats on both the school board and county commission. According to County GOP and state law, a person cannot simultaneously hold two elected positions.
Pender County GOP Chair Joshua Smith determined since Burns was technically appointed to one of those seats, that it was permissible for her to serve in both capacities. Smith was later informed that Burns couldn’t serve in both roles by the North Carolina State Board of Elections and North Carolina Republican Party.
Ultimately, Burns announced her plans to resign from the school board in August.
The second challenge was raised by Commissioner Burton over Burns’ husband, Jim, allegedly casting the tie-breaking vote for her appointment.
As a member of the Pender County Soil and Water board, Jim Burns has a seat on the executive committee. Smith confirmed that Burns’ husband did cast a vote on the commissioner vacancy at the Aug. 20 meeting.
Because her appointment to fill the vacancy is contingent on her being sworn in as interim county commissioner, Burns will remain on the school board until a decision is reached.
