By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Carter County emergency ambulance board met in regular session on Monday, opening the meeting with an approval of the minutes of the two previous meetings, one the regularly scheduled meeting and the other a special meeting. Next on the agenda was finalizing the purchase of two new Crestline ambulances. Hailey Kitchen of the Commercial Bank of Grayson was present at the meeting and collected signatures from board chair Kara Johnson and executive director Tim Woods.
Woods commented on the purchase and stated that the new trucks would significantly reduce the cost of maintenance for the board. One of the new trucks is currently at a detail shop in Lexington for striping and decal work. The second of the two vehicles is scheduled to come off the assembly line Thursday, August 22 and should be delivered no later than the first week of September.
In his director’s report Woods listed 540 calls for the month of July, and a total of 3,741 for the year as of July 31.
Currently transfer truck EC5 is running five days a week with two full time EMTs, but the ambulance service is short two full-time paramedics and is looking to hire two parttime paramedics. He requested approval to sell two trucks, Carter 6 and Carter 15 on gov.deals. Selling through this site would satisfy regulations governing the sale of such vehicles. A motion to approve that sale was passed by the board.
Woods also told the board that he had sent another letter to Carter County judge executive Brandon Burton regarding funding through the Opioid Abatement fund. Money from that source could possibly be as much as $40,000, but there was nothing confirmed at the time of the communication. The Director said that he had received a check in the amount of $10,000 on Monday from the Fiscal Court.
Dora Roe informed the board that she was surprised at the savings as she was changing insurance coverage to state insurance. The EMS Board carries $20,000 insurance policies on all their employees, and the bill she received was $31,279.12 as opposed to previous bills from companies such as Anthem and Delta Dental which were as high as $44,816.91. This change yielded a total savings of $13,537.79 per month, or approximately $162,453.48 per year. Roe said that the coverage itself is comparable to the previous coverage, and the saving on premiums did not adversely affect employees’ benefits.
The board also heard financial reports on income and expenses, including a report on income for the month of July 2024, of $257,570.48 which showed an increase in income of $29,37.03 beyond what was budgeted for that month. This increase yielded $41,939.67 more than the same month in 2023. Expenses for the month of July were $283,912.79, which was $9,711.79 more than was budgeted for the month and $10,776.80 less than the same month in 2023. The board also viewed a list of bills that had been paid.
Payroll consumed nearly 86.73 percent of the income year to date, according to the report. Expenses for the month of July 2024 were $223,398.95. Payroll expenses were $6,601.05 less than budgeted for the month and $24,417.59 less than the same month of 2023.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
