Rawlins County raises EMS on-call pay to $3/hour, approves ARPA laptop purchases

The Rawlins County Board of Commissioners on Oct. 31 approved raising EMS on-call pay from $2 to $3 per hour and authorized purchasing three HP laptops using ARPA funds to modernize EMS equipment.

Megan Rippe, representing Rawlins County EMS, presented October 2024 call numbers and asked the board to increase on-call pay to $3 per hour to align with other departments and to calculate full-time employee hours by pay-period month rather than by week. Commissioners approved the change: Commissioner Mosley moved to increase EMS call pay from $2/hr to $3/hr and to average hours for PTO calculations; Commissioner Solko seconded and the motion carried.

Commissioners also approved buying two HP laptops (combined price listed as $1,359.98) and a third HP laptop at $999.99 from ARPA funds to replace outdated equipment used for billing, report entry and transfers. The board discussed using one machine for billing, one to allow both technicians to enter reports without waiting, and one for transfer operations.

Treasurer RayeAnn Wright separately briefed the board on ongoing credit card processing issues and proposed switching to a system used by other Kansas counties that supports online tax payments and 24/7 customer service; the office will need to purchase two card terminals and continue scanning documents for off-site backup. The board did not record a separate vote on the credit card vendor in the minutes.

The board recorded these personnel and equipment approvals at the Oct. 31 meeting; follow-up procurement and system-implementation steps were assigned to the relevant departments.