GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) – During the Greene County Budget and Finance Committee meeting on Wednesday, Greene County/Greeneville EMS asked for eight new employee positions to help alleviate issues they have been experiencing.

“I want to add three more to keep our supervisors off the road because they do medical investigations and other daily duties that they can do a lot better if they’re not out running calls,” said Calvin Hawkins, director of Greene County/Greeneville EMS. “Along with that, I was wanting to add two more for a convalescent day truck because we have a lot of dialysis, wound care, and doctors’ appointments that we run.”

Hawkins told News Channel 11 that they have been experiencing a call back up that has improved recently, but the additional employees would be a benefit to the department.

“There’s times now we go to level zero, where there’s no ambulances available, sometimes calls go on hold,” Hawkins said. “When it gets real backed up, we have to start canceling doctor appointments and stuff but we try to keep dialysis and wound care at a top priority to get those.”

Greene County Mayor Kevin Morrison said that right now creating eight positions is not feasible, but they would be able to give them a couple.

“You’re looking at about a half a million dollars or $500,000, which equates now to about $0.03 of our property tax rate, now’s not the time to do that,” Morrison that. “The Budget Finance Committee decided to add two personnel on a convalescent truck for a total of three to help capture that revenue at no cost to the taxpayers.”

Adding two new positions will allow the EMS department to operate another day truck to assist with other calls.

“It’ll give us more opportunity to make more convalescent calls, the doctors’ appointments and things like that,” Hawkins said. “We can actually hire a paramedic, advanced EMT, or basic in those positions but mostly we’d probably hire an advanced or basic.”

Morrison said that adding even more positions could be something that the county reconsiders at a better time.

The Greene County Budget and Finance Committee will present the request to the County Commission.