Hiring a private ambulance company and forming a county-wide rescue service would cost Warren County about $90,000 less than renewing its 39-year-old ambulance service agreement with Vicksburg and paying a higher cost per run, county supervisors learned Tuesday.

City officials want to increase the cost of dispatched runs for ambulances and rescue units from $300 to $400 per call regardless if ambulance transports a patient. A charge county administrator John Smith said recently would increase the county’s costs to near $1 million for ambulance service.

“If we continue with the city, I estimate it will cost the county $933,100 for ambulance service in (fiscal) 2017, as opposed to $680,600 in 2016,” he said at a Tuesday work session. “That’s a $252,500 increase to us.

“(Going) private, it would cost $842,226, for the first year; most of that is startup costs for equipment and a vehicle for the proposed county rescue truck. That’s a difference of $90,874.”

Staying with city, he said would result in a $73,093 loss to the general fund, “Because I’m not going increase taxes.”

The board’s Tuesday work session combined ambulance service and a look at the county’s budget. The supervisors were supposed to approve an agreement with Laurel-based ASAPEMS for ambulance service, but tabled the measure, pending a meeting with city officials about ambulance service that afternoon.

The supervisors were no closer to a decision Tuesday than they were Monday morning, and set another Monday special meeting on the ambulance question. District 1 Supervisor John Arnold, who attended the afternoon meeting with the city, said city officials would not negotiate the fee.
Smith said a breakdown of the county’s cost of going private include $275,000 a year for ASAP, which covers the paramedics onboard the ambulances, and $554,126 for workers to man the rescue unit and equipment. He said a $13,100 state EMS grant to help cover the costs of the service is the final component.

“This will be an annual cost,” he said after the meeting.

Smith said ASAP officials “indicated to me their charge would be right around $1,200 bucks to carry patients. AMR said their fee was $1,200 or higher.

“The $275,000 is for the paramedic the county’s paying for; the paramedic who will tend to patient’s needs,” he said, adding he did not know if the $1,200 was a minimum or maximum fee.

He said county fire coordinator Jerry Briggs checked on ASAP’s service and financial condition. Briggs said ASAP officials gave him a different charge to transport patients.

“From what I’m hearing, their rates average $650 and $850 per run depending on mileage and services performed,” he said.

Briggs said the county has asked for three ambulances to be stationed at volunteer fire stations throughout the county. He said the rescue service would be exclusive of the county’s volunteer fire departments.

“The rescue service has nothing to do with the county fire service,” he said. “If the plan goes through, we plan to create a rescue department through the county, and we will hire people accordingly. We may hire some of them (volunteers) but it is not a volunteer service.

“The plan is to have two trucks and run one and keep one in reserve.”

Vicksburg has been providing ambulance and rescue service to the county under an interlocal agreement since 1967, and the county’s present consideration of a private ambulance service is not the first time a board of supervisors examined hiring a private firm. Prior boards considered going private in 1990, 1992 and 1997.

Each time the county renewed its agreement with the city.

Smith said the county discussed ambulance service with AMR and ASAP, adding representatvies for a third company, Little Rock, Ark. —based Pafford EMS, left a card with him, but did not talk to him. Pafford provides service to cities and counties in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Arnold said he previously talked with AMR and ASAP at state supervisor association conferences.

“That’s where the conversation started,” he said. “I also started talking with MedStat (ambulance), which was bought out by AMR. They’re pretty well represented at all of our conferences. They’re one of the big sponsors.”

There are corporate filings for ASAP EMS, and A Superior Ambulance Provider LLC Lamar County, which give identical addresses in Laurel, with the Mississippi Secretary of State. Smith is listed as a manager for A Superior Ambulance and as vice president and secretary for ASAP EMS. The president of ASAP EMS is Robert Parker, who is also listed as a manager for A Superior Ambulance.

According to ASAP EMS’ website, the company provides ambulance service for Copiah, Jones, Jasper, Greene and George counties in Mississippi, and in Clarke and Monroe counties in Alabama.

The company also provided ambulance service in Lamar County, but was replaced Aug. 1 after the Lamar County Board of Supervisors changed providers and hired Lifeguard Ambulance.

According to an article in the Hattiesburg American, the decision came after county officials spent several months investigating ASAP in the wake of a March incident in which the company reportedly had a slow response time to pickup a man who had been burned in a house fire.

According to a March 2 article, Smith said the 35-minute delay occurred because the call came in during a busy time and the company’s three ambulances in Lamar were on other calls and a fourth had to be brought in from Jones County. Smith added he also thought the 35-minute response time was not good under normal circumstances, but said the problem was due to the hectic nature of the time period when the call came.

Although there were some issues with run times, Joe Bonds, Lamar County Board of Supervisors board president, said ASAP’s contract was up and “we just shopped around to see what we felt would fit the county the best.”

“There were response time issues in some occasions, but not all,” he said. “A lot of the county is very rural, and we did have some long times in those spots, yes. It was really just time to make a change.”