Excerpts from jg-tc.com:
The Mattoon City Council voted Tuesday night to eliminate the city’s assistant fire chief position due to budgetary restraints and transfer the current assistant fire chief, Sean Junge, to fill a vacant shift captain post.
One council member said this post is being eliminated to help reduce the city’s budget deficit and to put another firefighter into the field to help meet union minimum staffing requirements. He and the mayor emphasized that the elimination has nothing to do with Junge who declined to comment after the meeting. The city administrator estimated that Junge’s annual salary will decrease by approximately 8 percent, not counting overtime, with the transfer to shift captain.
The council also heard concerns from residents about ambulance service coverage in Mattoon, including two accounts of Paris ambulances needing to be dispatched to Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center to transfer patients to Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana.
Four residents spokes about ambulance coverage in Mattoon since the city eliminated the Mattoon Fire Department’s ambulance service on July 25 due to budgetary constraints. Private providers Dunn’s Ambulance and Mitchell-Jerdan Ambulance Service are continuing to offer coverage in Mattoon.
The city has been making budget cuts as it faces a $750,000 deficit this year and the prospect of an even larger deficit next year. The city is facing growing pension costs and expenses.
Residents who feel strongly about the ambulance issue were encouraged to form a committee to pursue a sales or property tax referendum for bringing back the fire department’s ambulance service.
