FORT DAVIS — Peggy Fonseca was fired from her role as the Jeff Davis County EMS chief by county commissioners this week and escorted out of the courtroom by law enforcement following a period of political turbulence set off by EMS budget issues.
Fonseca’s employment with the county was discussed in a commissioners court meeting this week in public session, at the request of Fonseca. The back and forth — which mostly saw commissioners Roy Hurley and Royce Laskoskie confronting Fonseca about her leadership failures — ended in a vote in which Hurley, Laskoskie as well as commissioners Jody Adams and John Davis chose to terminate her employment, with County Judge Curtis Evans opposing.
Evans told The Big Bend Sentinel the commissioners’ decision to terminate Fonseca was a “knee jerk reaction” that “wasn’t thought through well enough,” and he opposed the move because there are so many programs and grants she was contributing to in the works.
“This situation has hit an abrupt wall. It’s going to take a lot of work now, in my office, in order to continue with these programs,” Evans said.
Evans named himself the administrator of record to help keep the service running for the time being, and a replacement for Fonseca will likely be pursued, he said. “We’re going to keep the payroll going. We don’t want to shut our service down. It’s too vital to our community and our people. We need this service.”
Fonseca told The Sentinel she felt a mixture of relief and disappointment at being fired and didn’t believe the decision was fair. She also expressed doubts the service would continue in her absence. “It was a witch hunt, that’s all it was,” Fonseca said. “That witch hunt is going to cost them the loss of a service for a community that will never get it back.”
Fonseca began transitioning into the role in July 2022 after the retirement of longtime EMS Chief Vickie Fowler, who chose to step down to make way for new leadership who could help transition the previously all-volunteer service — the only remaining in the tri-county area — into a hybrid or paid service.
Fonseca hit the ground running and began hiring paid EMTs and paramedics and became involved with several county-wide healthcare initiatives, including the idea to pursue the construction of a federally-qualified healthcare center and more telehealth services. She also served in a volunteer capacity as the county’s emergency management coordinator.
Her employment first came under fire from concerned citizens as well as county officials, including Laskoskie, in October of 2023 when she received a notice of violation from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) for failing to provide life-saving measures to a person in cardiac arrest.
Fonseca contested the violation and ultimately entered into a settlement agreement with DSHS that required her to complete three one-hour continuing education courses. She remained employed by the county while the legal process played out, and Evans maintained she was doing a good job on behalf of the county.
More recently, issues emerged with the EMS budget, which is overrun due to employee overtime expenses, Evans said. The court voted to allocate more money to the department to ensure employees continued to be paid, but the issue emerged as a sticking point during discussions about Fonseca’s employment.
When prompted to explain why the department was so over budget this fiscal year, Fonseca said volunteerism within the service has declined within the past five months, with volunteers dropping out due to family issues, injuries and more, leading them to rely more heavily on paid staff. She also pointed out volunteers were sparse before she arrived, with many aging out, and call volumes are currently high.
“The EMS wheels are still going round and round. We’re still making calls. We’re still very busy. I cannot give you what I don’t have,” Fonseca said. “The whole reason people volunteer is they volunteer when they have time to give to the community.”
Commissioner Hurley took issue with Fonseca going out on ambulance calls herself, to which she said she had to because there was no one else to fill in. He said volunteers told him they decided to drop out because they didn’t like Fonseca’s leadership. “Every volunteer that I’ve talked to, it’s the leadership, that’s what it comes back to every time,” Hurley said.
“I’ve met with the volunteers too, and they’ve all said they left because of you and your leadership and your policies,” Laskoskie added. “They all said the minute you are gone they will be happy to come back to work.”
The two commissioners also expressed concerns that Fonseca was not being aggressive enough in her communication with volunteers to get them on the schedule. Fonseca expressed confusion about which volunteers the commissioners had spoken with and said she does send emails and texts to try and fill up the schedule.
Melanie Blackman chided, “This is poor leadership,” from the crowd. Fonseca called her “fake news” in reply and maintained that volunteerism was down even before she arrived. “This is not a leadership problem,” Fonseca said.
Regarding volunteer objections to her policies, Fonseca said she was enforcing state policies, ensuring ambulances were properly checked and patient reports were being done. “It’s not something I arbitrarily created because I have nothing better to do,” Fonseca said.
Hurley then turned to Fonseca’s overtime hours as a point of contention. He said she was working too much overtime and that the amount from September 25 to March 24 totaled nearly $27,000. (Fonseca told The Sentinel Hurley’s numbers were incorrect.)
He said he was confused as to why she was not exempt from earning overtime as a county employee. Fonseca explained that, per federal law, when an exempt employee performs 20% of the job of an hourly employee they are entitled to overtime pay and that they had gone back and forth with the Texas Association of Counties (TAC) human resources representative about the matter.
After some more back and forth Commissioner Laskoskie made the motion to fire Fonseca — which was met with claps from the audience — and asked law enforcement officials to escort her to her office where she could collect personal belongings and turn in keys and county property.
Fonseca told The Sentinel she felt like she added value to the service and claimed accusations against her were not based on factual information. “Everything anyone said was incorrect,” Fonseca said. “I adhere to grants, unlike other people, and I play by the rules.”
Evans — who recently penned a letter in the Jeff Davis Mountain Dispatch detailing options for keeping EMS funded, which include subscriptions and an interfacility transfer service — said it remains to be seen how the county will keep EMS up and running. He said he is working with staff to find a solution and to see if any of the volunteers who said they would come back actually will. “Everything’s kind of up in the air right now,” Evans said. “We’re going to figure out how we’re going to fund it.”