CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – Horry County Fire Rescue is looking to bring on fifteen new employees to cut down on mandatory overtime and save taxpayers money.
The positions would be part-time shifts at the fire stations in Horry County.
For about two years now, News13 has told you about the need for more firefighters and paramedics to help with overtime shifts, and Captain Mark Nugent says they’re hoping part-time employees will help.
In a special report last month, News 13 told you Horry County tax payers paid more than $7K a day for overtime. That’s almost $2.6 million dollars in a year.
“Obviously, hiring for overtime, that’s time and a half pay. Basically, we could hire three people as straight time employees for firefighter medics for Horry Fire Rescue than we could paying two for overtime,” said Nugent.
After that interview, the department posted openings for part-time firefighters and EMTs to the county’s website.
“Part-time people we bring on now, they schedule out a month ahead of time. So, that’s not a short-time thing. We have people who are on regular annual leave. They may have training assignments where they’re not in the station. So, we plug a lot of those spots with these part-timers,” said Nugent.
Nugent says they’re looking to bring on about 15 part-time people to help with overtime costs and to help fill vacancies.
“It may be a person who works for one of the other fire rescue organizations in the area that allow them to work other places so they come and pick up a shift each week It may be someone who’s moving from out of town that’s maybe looking for a job,” said Nugent.
Nugent says they’d fill a 24-hour shift each week. It’s something the department tried back in 2014, but at the time they had trouble filling the positions.
“As time goes on, people will come into that position and then they’ll transition out. Either they don’t work enough time. We want them active in that process, if we’ve got 23 slots, we would love to fill them all and that just gives us more opportunities for us to fill those long-term vacancies or vacancies that have been planned out say for vacation time. So, we want to get those positions filled back up,” said Nugent.
For these new part-time positions, the post states the salary range is between $12.50 to just over $15 dollars an hour.
Nugent says they also have a class of 30 recruits graduating this Friday, and they’re hoping they will also help fill some vacancies the department has had for a few months now.