Gilmer County Fire and Rescue is losing staff members to nearby departments. Officials point to insufficient pay and limited benefits to explain poor retention rates that could become a public safety concern.
Gilmer Fire had four open positions in December. Now, there are 18 positions needing to be filled, according to Deputy Fire Chief Jason Bryant. The department could not provide comment on these concerns and directed all questions to Board of Commissioners Chairman Charlie Paris.
Paris broke down some of the numbers. Gilmer Fire’s 2025 budget from commissioners is $6,514,751, not including $2 million budgeted for a new ladder truck. Out of that, $3,523,800 is allocated to employee salaries, not including insurance and other benefits costs, according to Paris.
Starting salary for a full-time firefighter in Gilmer can range from $51,391 to $57,437 a year, depending on qualifications.
Gilmer Fire leaders came to Paris two to three weeks ago, expressing changes they think need to be made to retain their employees.
“What we discussed was that it was salary and retirement,” he said. “I told him I would see what I could do and I looked into it, but we just don’t have the money right now to change the budget that we put in place or add to it.”
Paris believes this is an issue they need to address in the 2026 budget. Commissioners will start working on the numbers for next year in around five months.
If Gilmer Fire keeps losing employees to surrounding departments, current crew members will continue to be burdened by working overtime and long hours, he noted.
“We’ve got to figure out how to stop that exit of employees,” Paris said. “Right now, we’re able to maintain things, but if that continues, my concern will be we might have to shut down one station. I don’t want that to happen.”
At a Board of Commissioners meeting on April 9, GCSO Sheriff Stacy Nicholson brought up the need for county employees to be offered better benefits and retirement plans. While Nicholson said GCSO is almost fully staffed, Public Safety Director Sam West couldn’t say the same for Gilmer Fire and EMS.
“We’ve lost several [employees], and that’s one of the big things I hear,” West said at the commissioners meeting. “The majority of those people went to Pickens [Fire] because they are absolutely wearing us out right now on benefits.”
Chief Human Resources Officer Patrick Ho proposed soft benefits to commissioners at last week’s meeting, to help combat retention and recruitment issues across Gilmer departments. Due to budgetary restrictions, he said compensation cannot be addressed at this time.
The soft benefits include giving employees their birthday off, and other options that would not require any budgetary amendments, which commissioners voted to approve on Friday, April 11.
A hard benefit that Ho proposed is enhancing their retirement system. With current benchmarking and while conducting exit interviews with employees leaving to work in surrounding counties, he said Gilmer’s retirement matching is the lowest, with Pickens leading. This proposal will be considered at a later time.
Paris explained that Gilmer’s retirement program for county employees matches 25 cents on the dollar, for up to 6 percent of their salary. He was told that Pickens County matches dollar for dollar, for up to 7 percent of their salary.
Pickens County Fire is budgeted $4,591,510 for 2025 by their county commission, according to Pickens Fire Chief Tim Prather. The starting salary for a firefighter/EMT can range from $46,720 to $49,008. For a firefighter/paramedic, they start at $54,575 a year.
“We’ve come a long way on salaries … They’re trying to catch us up but the competition is hard when I look at some of the counties south of me here,” Prather noted about Pickens Fire’s yearly budget. “You can’t compete with them on it. I really need more people than anything, more positions. I think that’s where we all are.”
Gilmer’s benefits for employees used to be comparable to surrounding counties, like Pickens. Paris said over the last few years, Gilmer has improved firefighter pay as they compete for the same labor force. However, in the 2025 budget, surrounding counties underwent significant increases and Gilmer couldn’t keep up.
“We didn’t do a huge increase this year, so now they’ve got out ahead of us again.” Paris explained. “It’s just sort of a leapfrog type thing. Now that they’ve moved theirs up, in 2026 we will probably have to move ours up, then they’ll probably do it again.”
While Prather didn’t want to go into detail about why Gilmer Fire was struggling to retain their employees, he said that for the firefighters that now work in Pickens, “They’re much happier here.”
The Fannin County Fire Rescue Department has $1,754,251 budgeted for 2025. Human Resources and Payroll Clerk Jessie Hall said starting pay for full-time firefighters can range from $31,200 to $52,000 a year. Some of their main benefits include a 401k with a 4 percent county match and free, fully covered medical and dental insurance for employees.
Murray County commissioners budget $3,100,000 for their emergency services. Depending on qualifications, firefighters start at a yearly salary of $39,000 to $52,000.
Gilmer Fire isn’t the only department struggling with retention rates, according to Murray County Fire Chief and EMA Director Dewayne Bain. He said recruitment in Murray is a challenge as well.
“We got our pay up that’s decently competitive with other industries, but emergency service is one of those things that’s a calling and not many people are answering that call,” Bain said. “Everybody wants to have more money but there’s only so much that a tax-based employer can do … In leadership, their hands are tied because they don’t want to raise taxes on people.”
The average base salary for a firefighter in Georgia is $49,562 per year, according to the job board site Indeed. That’s 12 percent below the national average.