GREENWOOD TWP- The ongoing lack of communication between township officials here, prompted a brief special board meeting on Tuesday, but it’s unclear whether the problem will go away any time soon. Tuesday’s special meeting lasted less than 10 minutes but would likely would have been unnecessary with better communication, in this instance a phone call between the board chair and the fire chief.
An expired Emergency Medical Responder, or EMR, certificate was one of two items on the agenda, which had been called by board chair Lois Roskoski and Craig Gilbert.
Roskoski noted that fire chief Jeff Maus had provided her with the information she had requested about the certifications for the township’s EMR personnel prior to the special meeting, including a list of all the fire department’s EMRs and their certifications. This information is all available online since the state oversees EMR certification.
“I didn’t know I could go on the website and get this information. I am learning,” she said.
“Two of them had expired certifications,” Roskoski said, “one was renewed as of yesterday.” This leaves one township EMR without the required certification.
She said the township attorney told her there was a huge liability to have an EMR going on a call with an expired certification, although she offered no suggestion that anyone with an expired certificate was doing so.
According to Maus, he has been aware of the situation and was working with the individual responder to get the required training scheduled. “We knew this EMRs certification had lapsed,” Maus said during a phone conversation with the Timberjay following the meeting. “He hasn’t been going on calls.”
Maus, who has been unable to attend meetings recently during his recovery from hip surgery, said that no one from the board had called him to ask about the issue.
“It was all pretty easy stuff to resolve,” he said.
Maus also noted that the state board that oversees emergency responders (EMSRB) calls these certifications “lapsed,” not expired, and that EMRs have up to four years to update their training before they are considered expired.
Even so, EMRs are not permitted to respond to emergency calls if their certifications have lapsed, Maus said, and he had spoken to the EMR in question, and they were working to schedule the class time. EMRs are required to complete 16 hours of continuing education classes every two years to maintain their certification.
In their only other item of business, the board approved a motion allowing up to eight of the township’s EMRs to attend a three-day conference in Duluth next month. The board had earlier agreed to send five members to the event.
Maus had told the board five members were interested, and the cost would be around $5,400 for the registration, hotel rooms, and travel costs.
The board passed a motion to allow three more EMRs to attend, if desired, but during discussion it was determined that only five EMRs total are interested in attending, so it will ensure that EMRs will be available to respond to any medical calls during the conference.
The department generally averages only one EMR call a week during the winter months, according to Maus.
In an email Maus sent to Roskoski prior to the meeting, which Maus had requested to be read to the board, Maus also discussed the fire department’s standard operating guidelines (SOGs), but Roskoski said they would not discuss this information because it was not on the agenda. In the email, Maus confirmed that the version of the SOGs currently in place was approved by the board in April 2021, which was prior to his assuming the chief role in September 2022. Maus had forwarded this version of the SOGs, with notations about possible changes that need to be approved by the board, to the clerk on Nov. 9, but apparently this information was not shared as part of the meeting packet in November or December, he said.
Instead, at their regular December meeting, the board voted to hire Hibbing Fire Chief Erik Jankila, to update both of these policies, at a cost not to exceed $2,000. At that meeting, board member Paul Skubic had complained that the township was having to spend money to get the work done when the board had asked Maus to recommend the revisions.