Red Springs board weighs town-run EMS as updated FY2025–26 budget is reviewed

Town Manager Shanelle Harris presented an updated draft of the Town of Red Springs proposed FY2025–26 budget at a recessed Board of Commissioners meeting on June 16, 2025, and identified options that would affect employee pay, reserves and local emergency medical services.

Harris gave commissioners an updated authorized-positions list, an organizational chart, a draft budget and documents on a Façade Improvement Grant Program and an Economic Incentive Agreement package. She told the board she had modeled a 2.5% reduction in salaries as one option for controlling personnel costs and said the town must decide whether to provide or contract EMS services.

The budget review included several fiscal clarifications from Finance Director Kasey Davis. Davis told the board the town invoiced PSRC for the SRO position at Peterson Elementary from December 2021 through August 2022 and said the last cost-of-living adjustment was in July 2022, when pay was increased by $1 per hour and employees earning under $15 per hour were raised to $15. She also reported the town paid Burford Tree Services $68,322.73 and that a loan agreement has been charged to the town’s wholesale power bill at $23,415.39 per month since July 2015; Davis said that loan will end with the July invoice billed in August but that a rider may limit the size of any immediate reduction in charges.

Commissioners asked Harris to add a six percent reserve to all funds. Harris adjusted the draft budget and moved items such as Powell Bill salary coverage, planned vehicle purchases and outsourcing of trash collection to be funded from the Fund Balance in the current draft rather than current revenues.

A major policy choice in the draft budget was how to handle EMS. Harris said that if the Fire Department assumed EMS duties, Fire Chief John Ammons would become a full-time employee. Ammons’s estimate for operating EMS was $159,000, while Harris said she budgeted $223,000 to cover a full year of operation. Harris advised commissioners that municipal EMS should be understood as a goodwill service rather than a profit-generating enterprise.

Representatives of the Red Springs Rescue Squad, Deonte Carter and Kinston McLean, addressed the board to ask what the town planned for EMS services and to present the squad’s position. Harris repeated that starting EMS under town authority would require borrowing from the Fund Balance; she estimated the Fire Department takeover would require about $136,000 from reserves to get started and stated she was not recommending the town assume the service given that initial draw on fund balance.

The board also discussed Recreation Department needs including replacement bleachers and the press box; commissioners asked the manager to explore whether prisoner labor could be used to assist with town maintenance projects. Mayor Edward Henderson asked Harris to prepare a Code of Ethics after the budget work is complete, noting a state requirement for a board code of ethics.

Harris summarized the Town of Red Springs Façade Improvement Grant Program and the Economic Incentive Agreement package and the board requested that a trash-penalty provision be added to the town’s ordinance. With no additional business, Commissioner Chris Edmonds moved to recess the meeting until June 25, 2025, at 6:30 p.m.; Commissioner Ronnie Patterson seconded and all members present voted in favor.

Actions and next steps: the board requested manager-prepared budget adjustments including a six percent reserve for all funds, asked for additional information on personnel and capital needs, and will reconvene June 25 to continue budget deliberations.