The Washington County Board of Supervisors continued discussion that began in September on purchasing a Basic Life Support truck for the ambulance service.

Ambulance Director Jeremy Peck proposed the truck, as so far the service has responded to 200 more calls this year, and 58% of last year’s calls were for BLS. This truck would transport patients to hospitals and not require a paramedic on board. Peck presented dollar figures on the cost of hiring two new full-time emergency medical technicians for the truck or 12 part-time employees, “Personally, if it’s okay with you guys I think we’ll talk about the full time first because to me it makes more sense. It’s going to be a hair more expensive as far as looking at the bottom dollar. We don’t have the training costs in 12 people, we don’t have the uniform costs, all that good stuff in the multiple people, if we just go with the two full time and a couple of part-time people.”

Peck figured that two full-time employees would total about $235,182 in excess funds, while 12 part-time hires would total $30,000 on top of that. Figures were also given on the volume of calls they’ve had since the beginning of the fiscal year, with their peak occurring at the noon hour. The board approved to table action on this item until next week. Personnel change requests for the pay increases previously approved for the ambulance staff were also approved Tuesday.