By COLLIN BREAUXWashington County Emergency Medical Services Director Randy Truette received approval from the County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) to purchase a new ambulance.
The funding for the ambulance will come out the EMS budget.
“We’ve got a need to replace some of our older ambulances,” Truette said to the BOCC during a meeting on March 4. “We have an opportunity to buy one. In the past, we’ve bought them through grants, lease-purchase type situations. This time, we decided to try to go through local vendors to borrow the money–which has posed a few unknown problems to us.”
Truette said they got their “best rates” with a local bank.
The County EMS department required approval from the BOCC to get a tax-exempt rate on a loan for the ambulance, which the BOCC gave. The County Attorney will also write an opinion letter saying the County is a tax-exempt entity.
“The ambulance is ready to go,” Truette said. “We found it for about $40,000 less than contract pricing. It’s a company we’ve already dealt with and bought ambulances from in the past. We can get our maintenance done right there in DeFuniak. They’re good ambulances. We’re already running two of them.”