Pender County presents plan to merge EMS and fire into single Emergency Services Department; officials flag budget, service and transition questions

Pender County officials on June 2 presented a broad plan to merge the county’s separate EMS and fire organizations into a single Emergency Services Department, with county operations proposed to begin July 1, 2026.

The plan, delivered as an informational presentation by county staff (identified in the meeting as Miss Fulton), lays out milestones through a final legal merger agreement by the end of the year, a payroll transition on July 10, 2026, and follow-up tasks such as retitling assets, IT integration, and rebranding of fleet and stations.

County staff said the merger would fold Pender EMS and Fire, Penderlea Fire, Maple Hill Fire and Rocky Point Fire into a consolidated department. The plan describes a traditional emergency-services organizational chart—director, deputy director, division chiefs for fire and EMS, an emergency services communications administrator and a continuing emergency management function—and says some existing administrative and logistics roles may be allocated to other county departments after evaluation.

The presentation emphasized this session was informational only: “Tonight will be informational only,” Fulton said. The timeline presented shows a memorandum of understanding stage, town-hall meetings for staff and public, updating the county EMS system plan, and a final legal merger agreement before the planned July 1, 2026 operational transfer.

Why it matters: the plan includes both one-time and recurring costs and takes on current debts and liabilities the county does…