HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — Henrico County is expanding its emergency medical services workforce and offering enhanced benefits to attract and keep dedicated EMS professionals.
The Henrico County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved enhanced hazardous duty pay for EMTs and paramedics who work exclusively in emergency medical services. The move is part of a broader effort to modernize emergency response as call volumes continue to climb.
Jackson Baynard, former fire chief for Henrico County Division of Fire who is now deputy county manager for public safety, said 85% of the county's calls are EMS-related.
"85% of our calls being EMS, last year was about 60,000 calls for service, so we're doing over 40,000 calls just in EMS," Baynard said.
Medical emergencies, mental health crises, overdoses, falls, and other situations requiring emergency medical care now make up the overwhelming majority of 911 calls in Henrico County.
Baynard, the former fire chief of the Henrico County Division of Fire, has been pushing for the enhanced hazardous duty benefits since September. The benefits will apply to current and future EMS-only providers — employees who are not trained as firefighters but respond to many of the same emergency situations.
Baynard said those responders face serious risks on the job.
"They're going to unknown situations, they're getting exposed to all sorts of different infectious diseases, they're facing the same challenges, the tough scenes, all that comes into play, the PTSD, the mental health exposure they have to deal with. So they really are just an extension of our public safety family at Henrico," Baynard said.
County leaders have studied agencies in Northern Virginia and Virginia Beach that have incorporated EMS-only personnel in various ways. While no two systems are the same, Henrico leaders say those conversations helped shape their own approach.
Henrico Fire currently employs six full-time EMS-only providers and plans to add five more EMS-only paramedic positions. Baynard said recruitment efforts have already drawn significant interest, with more than 100 applications submitted.
"Looking at their retirement years, hopefully this is a good retention tool for us to help retain some EMS-only providers, and also could be a good recruitment tool for us as we continue to look down the road of potentially needing to grow this area of our EMS," Baynard said.
Officials say the enhanced benefits are also designed to help address staffing challenges that fire departments nationwide continue to face.
"We looked at this as a holistic picture related to our whole EMS system when it comes to the changing dynamics in the environment we operate in," Baynard said.
The next steps for the county are to expand its EMS-only positions while closely tracking recruitment, retention, and operational impacts across the system.
"There's just another tool to help us be able to adjust to meet the needs in the community," Baynard said.
The deadline to apply to join Henrico Fire is July 1. Application details are available here.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
📲: CONNECT WITH US
Blue Sky | Facebook | Instagram | X | Threads | TikTok | YouTube
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. To learn more about how we use AI in our newsroom, click here.
