Gilmer County commissioners have authorized the emergency purchase of an ambulance.
At a work session Aug. 12, members of the Gilmer County Fire Department made the case for a fast purchase.
“For the last year or so, we have been having some maintenance issues due to the aging of our fleet,” said Will Sergent division chief of EMS.
Since May 24, they have had to swap out ambulances 31 times.
“The most serious is three weeks ago, we were transporting a patient who was very sick, needing to go to the hospital, and the ambulance that they were in shut down going down the road, lost all power,” he said.
Gilmer County has four ambulances in service with three reserve ambulances, Sergent said.
“We are continually at a place where we have no spares available because our spares are going out for maintenance, and our front-line trucks are going out for maintenance,” he said.
Gilmer County has two ambulances on order which are in production, but supply chain issues which occurred because of COVID mean they are taking delivery of the new vehicles in mid-2025.
Sergent told commissioners he has located ambulances for sale, but they are gone within 48 hours. Generally, they come up as another department decides to abandon a purchase after the ambulance has been assembled.
Funds are budgeted for the purchase of a new ambulance, but ordering one would take a considerable amount of time. An emergency purchase would also cost an estimated $20,000 to $30,000 more than the amount budgeted, Sergent said.
Commissioners voted to give Gilmer County Board Chair Charlie Paris the green light to make the emergency purchase at the regular session meeting Aug. 13.
Millage rates
Commissioners approved the collection of millage rates for 2024.
County rates are 5.329 mils for the maintenance and operation of the county, which is the rollback rate. For the bond rate, Gilmer maintained a rate of .75 mils.
Gilmer County School System approved a rollback rate of 9.415 mils.
This totals 15.494 mils.
Personnel handbook
Commissioners have continued a discussion of the Gilmer County personnel handbook across the work session Aug. 12, a regular meeting Aug. 13 and a special called meeting Aug. 19.
The discussion began when Gilmer County Chief Human Resource Officer Patrick Ho put together an updated personnel handbook. Paris asked Post Commissioner Hubert Parker to review the document and make suggestions.
At this point, a discussion began whether the handbook should be approved by the full board or by Paris alone.
Hubert and Post Commissioner John Marshall contend the full board should approve the handbook, and Paris is then responsible for enacting the policies within.
Paris agrees portions of the handbook are policy which should be approved by the board, but other sections deal with day-to-day operation, which he claims is the sole purview of the chair.
Splitting the document into a policy section and a procedure section is what Paris suggests. The board would then approve the policy section.
Commissioners agreed to look at what the boards do in surrounding counties and reconvene.
Other business
In other business, Gilmer County commissioners:
﹣ approved a short-term rental board of Mary Abernathy, Wayne Johnson, Deputy Fire Chief Jason Bryant, Nicole Jones Tinker and Jeff Watkins.
﹣ voted to ask the state legislature to abolish the position of county surveyor. No one qualified for the position this election despite an extension on the time period for signing up.