Augusta city leaders look to hire full-time EMA director

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – The city of Augusta has no full-time EMA director.

Despite this, we’ve experienced several weather events in the last six months, including Hurricane Helene and both winter weather events.

“It’s been an interesting year. We haven’t seen snow in, oh my gosh, it’s been years. I mean, snow on the ground. It’s been several years I can think of,” said Commissioner Catherine Smith-Rice.

Two winter storms in less than two weeks, while many are still recovering from Hurricane Helene.

Mayor Garnett Johnson said: “I certainly have learned a lot from Hurricane Helene and these two more recent snowfalls, snow incidents that we need a full-time EMA director.”

Right now, Augusta Fire Chief Antonio Burden plays dual parts, being the fire chief and EMA director.

Commissioner Jordan Johnson said: “This conversation is not just about a position in my mind. It’s about expanding a department and how much money will we have to amend our budget to meet this expectation.”

Mayor Johnson says the funding is there.

ALSO IN COMMISSION:

• Augusta leaders discussed several topics at Thursday’s commission meeting, including floating homestead exemption, beautification, improvements at 600 Broad and charter review.

“There is a deputy position already. We’re going to use funding to create a director’s position, but the EMA department already has a coordinator, so there’s already a department there. We just got to stand it up with having a full-time director,” said the mayor.

The mayor says Augusta hasn’t had a full-time director for more than 20 years.

“You look at a city of our size. It warrants having a full-time, dedicated EMA director who makes sure that we’re on the cutting edge of technology for preparedness, for disseminating information to all of our community partners and for the hire that we expect to make. I would expect them to have all of those abilities to do that,” said Mayor Johnson.

Of course, moving forward there will be tough conversations.

Commissioner Johnson said: “I know we had a big conversation about not having money in our budget. So, my concern is are we going over budget? Are we getting ready to put ourselves on a budget in a situation that we can’t get ourselves out of?”

Smith-Rice said: “With what we’ve experienced, we need to be cautious, and we need to go ahead and commission needs to get on the ball and start doing our search.”

Because if they’ve learned anything here, preparedness is key.

Johnson says the process to hire a full-time EMA director is getting underway.

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