BATON ROUGE — A plan to merge the Baton Rouge Fire Department with Baton Rouge EMS is on hold for at least a month.

City-parish leaders put a 30-day pause on the proposal, giving time for more questions to be answered.

“Can we even do this? Because we are merging a parish entity with a city entity, everybody's confused,” East Baton Rouge Paramedic Association President Janice Willard said. 

Five weeks after Mayor-President Sid Edwards said he would merge fire and EMS services in the parish, paramedics say they're still waiting for answers.

“There was no indication whatsoever that this was even coming down the line," Willard said. 

Willard says employees only learned about the proposal last month, and many still don't know exactly what is being changed; all they know is Baton Rouge Fire could take over. 

"If we're moving under their umbrella but there's no going to be any changes, what savings are we producing, what redundancy are we eliminating?" Willard said.

Baton Rouge Fire Chief Michael Kimble says the goal is to streamline services, not cut jobs.

“We'll be more efficient, we'll reduce redundancy, strengthen emergency response and more importantly, better protect and serve the citizens of this city and this parish," Kimble said in the June announcement. 

Willard argues that many of those efficiencies could happen without a complete merger.

“We can do these with interdepartmental contracts and still use their maintenance facilities and stuff like that,” Willard said.

With no clear timeline, employees say the most frustrating part is the lack of communication.

“Even if the answer is I don't know, at least the communication lines have been opened and they're actually talking to us," Willard said.

In August, there will be meetings among the departments, the mayor's office, and employees to voice their concerns. 

The hold is expected to end at the next Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board Meeting on Aug. 25.