Part-time EMS employees are leaving Lake Township for full-time opportunities, leading trustees to change their minds about putting a new operating levy on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The trustees are planning to put a 1.5-mill, five-year operating levy for EMS before voters. If passed, it will generate $500,000 annually and cost the owner of a $100,000 property $53 a year, Trustee Richard Welling said on Friday.
“We’re losing our EMS people,” he said, adding that four part-time workers have left in the last month for full-time opportunities.
The new money would fund four full-time EMS positions, Mr. Welling said.
The trustees are expected to vote on putting the tax issue on the ballot at special 4 p.m. Monday meeting at the township administration building, 27975 Cummings Rd., Millbury.
The new money ask would join a renewal levy that the trustees have already buttoned down for the Nov. 5 ballot. The existing five-year, 1-mill levy generates $250,000 annually and supports both fire and EMS operations; it costs the owner of a $100,000 home $20 annually, Mr. Welling said.
“If we don’t go full-time, we’re probably going to have a hard time meeting EMS runs,” Mr. Welling said. “Somebody will show up, but it may not be Lake Township.”
Both he and Police Chief Mark Hummer, who is also the township administrator, likened the situation to one in Rossford, which also lost a lot of part-time staff at the end of 2023. After a six-month study and weighing a proposal to contract with Perrysburg Township, council decided to go full-time and is in the process of hiring a chief and more firefighters.
Northwood’s fire chief also recently talked about how the city is hiring three new full-time EMS employees, who will start in September.
The three entities have studied becoming a fire district.
“Even if we decided to merge with Northwood tomorrow, we’d still need a levy because we’d be coming in empty handed,” Mr. Welling said of Lake Township staffing. “We have to take action now if want to meet the EMS demand.”
“If we all get full-time personnel on board we have a better chance of furthering that conversation,” Chief Hummer said of fire district talks. “I just don’t think people are ready for it. I’m not going to give up, though.
“We’ve got to take care of our folks first and foremost,” he said. “We really can’t function any longer with part-time personnel.”
Township voters on Nov. 7 rejected an additional continuing 4.2-mill levy by a margin of 1,428, or 36 percent, in favor and 2,504, or 64 percent, against. It would have funded furthering full-time operations of both the EMS and fire departments.
Mr. Welling said the Nov. 5 ask will be stripped down and hopefully more affordable and attractive to township residents.
“We’ve reduced it to the basic bare bones,” he said. “We heard what people said, and this is for EMS only.”
In January, the trustees had said they would not seek a new levy this year, but things changed with the part-time employees leaving, Mr. Welling said.
“Our backs are pretty much against the wall on this one,” he said. “We’re running out of people, it’s as simple as that.”
The township’s full-time fire chief, Barrett Dorner, resigned in May. Township leaders have put off a search for a new chief.
Mr. Welling said Deputy Chief Dave Henninger, a long-time Lake Township employee and retired Toledo firefighter, is very competent and well liked.
Chief Hummer said the most pressing issues in the fire department are the two levies, not hiring a permanent chief.
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