JOHNSTON COUNTY -- It's been about a year since County Commissioners demanded changes in the contracts they maintain with the county’s eight EMS squads.

The changes stemmed in large part from problems at Benson EMS, where paychecks at Christmas 2006 came late because of a lull in collections after a switch in billing company.

At the time, Capt. Danny Morgan said the old company had failed to provide the new one with routing numbers needed for Medicare and Medicaid payments. Meanwhile, the new company fell behind in collecting payments. That December, the squad had enough money to pay its eight full-time employees, while its 16 part-timers went without.

Benson EMS eventually righted its financial ship, but the squad has continued to struggle, although for a different reason, said Hampton Whittington, chairman of the EMS board. “When the rescue squad was started in the 1960s, it was all volunteers,” he said. “It’s gotten to the point now that almost everyone who works for Benson is a paid employee. There are only one or two true volunteers who are still active on the squad and not getting paid.”

Whittington said the decline in volunteerism in Benson reflected a growing trend. “The situation has gotten to where the requirements for anyone to work on a rescue squad are taking an increasingly larger amount of time to meet,” he said. “People who are already working full-time jobs just don’t have the time to keep up with the amount of training they need to stay qualified.”

Jason Garner, chief of the North Johnston EMS squad, agrees. While volunteerism among the county’s squads isn’t dead — his department has held on to about a dozen — Garner said volunteers are a “dying breed.”

“Nowadays, you have to take so much education,” he said. “The liability when you’re on a truck is so high. Anything you do could potentially lead to a lawsuit.”

Garner said his department hadn’t struggled much to provide pay for the 12 full-time staff. He said members of the North Johnston squad tend to put loyalty before money.

“I’m told a lot of times that it’s more important to have a great place to work with people you know,” he said.

Whittington said Benson EMS officials had found it harder to retain paramedics and EMTs. Surrounding counties like Wake offer higher pay, and larger departments are able to offer better benefits that the Benson agency simply can’t afford, he said.

“We’re losing employees to other EMS agencies, especially in Wake County, where they’re able to obtain benefits like medical and retirement,” he said. “Benson does offer some medical benefits, but the problem is that we have so many part-timers. They might work here a few days a week, then move over to Four Oaks or another town. So that makes it difficult to set up a pension fund for someone like that.”

During a recent meeting, the Benson EMS board drafted a letter asking the county to take over the agency. A letter from the North Johnston squad followed close behind.

Commissioner Wade Stewart said the letters weren’t unexpected. While county leaders have preferred to let local boards manage Johnston’s EMS squads, Stewart suggested change might have been inevitable.

“It would not surprise me to have other such letters based on the fact that captains on these squads are aging out, and they’re having difficulty getting the younger people to take charge like they did,” he said. “These departments just think at this point that the county can provide better management going forward.”

As a result, commissioners voted unanimously last week to take over the Benson and North Johnston departments. Starting July 1, oversight of the four stations run by Benson and North Johnston will fall first to Kim Robertson, the county’s director of emergency management.

Robertson said Johnstonians should see the change as positive. “Ultimately, it’s the county’s responsibility by law to provide the service no matter how it’s done,” she said. “So this really doesn’t change things in terms of the quality of service that will still be provided. Both of these agencies have done excellent jobs in the past, and we don’t expect that will change.”

County Manager Rick Hester said the county budget for the upcoming fiscal year doesn’t leave room to take on any more EMS departments. “But if someone else comes up and asks, that’s something we’ll really have to take a look at,” he said.