New EMS chassis backed by committee

A change in environmental standards for diesel engines may make the kind of truck chassis used for ambulances hard to come by during 2010, and so Bedford County Financial Management Committee voted last month to recommend that Bedford County Emergency Medical Services purchase a new chassis now, even if it can't be used right away.

To save money, an ambulance box can be remounted -- transferred from an old truck chassis to a new one -- as an alternative to buying an all-new ambulance. BCEMS had been on a regular schedule of buying or remounting a new ambulance every year, but the past two years of tight county budgets have prevented that, and now BCEMS director Chad Graham says half of the BCEMS fleet has more than 100,000 miles -- and three have more than 150,000 miles.

BCEMS brought Steve Feldhaus of SelectTech, a Shelbyville-based ambulance remounter, to the finance committee meeting to discuss the impact of new EPA requrements. New, tougher emissions requirements will be in effect; existing diesel vehicles will have to use a fuel additive.

Ford, which has supplied all of BCEMS's existing ambulance chassis, will not produce an ambulance chassis during 2010 so that it can retool to meet the new requirements. General Motors does plan to produce a compliant chassis, but Feldhaus said it's sometimes a risk to buy the very first model introduced after such a major change.

Gasoline-powered chassis are available, but an ambulance's heavy workload, including extended idling and high-speed driving, can sometimes cause a gasoline engine to overheat, said Graham.

BCEMS has been running ahead of revenue projections for the fiscal year, and would like to use $32,000 of the excess to buy a new chassis before the changes take effect, even if it can't be used for a remount right away. (The total cost of a remount, including the chassis, is about $68,000.)

Finance committee members said that sounded like a wise investment, and voted to recommend it to the full commission.

In other discussion at the meeting, County Mayor Eugene Ray reported that 20 potential operators have requested and been mailed the county's bid specifications for leasing Bedford County Nursing Home. The county is seeking to lease the nursing home for a two-year period.

County Finance Director Robert Daniel said that while the nursing home's current balance sheet shows more assets than liabilities, those assets include accounts owed to the nursing home which may not be easily collectible.

"I'm not sure how good those receivables are," said Daniel, saying many have been owed for more than 60 days. "They're not collecting the receivables fast enough to pay the bills."