A couple weeks ago Horry County unveiled a new plan to pay firefighters and medics more money.
The plan calls for a three percent salary increase in addition to a county-wide three percent merit increase.
News13 spoke with the president of the local chapter of the International Association of Firefighters, Rob Mullaney, to hear some of the feedback he has gotten from crews around the area.
Mullaney said the biggest problem he has heard firefighters voice their concern over is that nothing was done to properly address pay compression. That’s when people with a lot of experience don’t make much more than those starting out.
“There are paramedics making more than lieutenants,” Mullaney said. “And unless they fix that they’re gonna keep losing senior, mid-level and senior guys.”
After the plan was unveiled, News13 asked County Chairman Mark Lazarus how the county is addressing the pay compression issue.
“The way we put it together is it gets our base pay up and then it takes everybody above that higher too,” Lazarus said in March.
HCFR also revealed a plan to move higher-skilled medics off of ambulance duty so that they are not responding to basic calls. The department said this could help cut down on overtime.
“Basically it’s just like a shell game,” Mullaney said. “Yeah it’ll cut down, initially it’ll cut down on the overtime, but it’s not fixing the problem. You’re still gonna have an overtime problem; there are still multiple guys out every day.”
Pay compression is an issue the president of the National Fraternal Order of Police said he also has with Horry County’s other new plan to pay law enforcement more by a dollar amount.
