EMS board may be eliminated

Bedford County Board of Commissioners, meeting Tuesday night, asked its rules and legislative committee to study doing away with the Bedford County Emergency Medical Services board and placing the ambulance service under control of the commission's own law enforcement committee.

The rules committee will meet next week.

BCEMS is currently managed by a five-member board. Unlike the school system or the highway department, which have their own separate budgets and tax rates, BCEMS is a part of the county general fund budget. When the county placed itself under the state's Financial Management Act of 1981 a few years ago, some of the purchasing functions that used to be overseen by individual county departments were centralized under the county's finance director.

The board as it now exists oversees BCEMS operations, hires the service's director, approves policies, plans for future development, and proposes a budget each year for the commission to approve.

A vacancy on the BCEMS board, caused by the resignation of board member Joe McCurry, was on Tuesday night's commission agenda. The commission deferred action on filling that seat, since there was not yet a prospective candidate on the table. Then, Commissioner Joe Tillett questioned whether there's still a need for a separate board to oversee BCEMS and moved that the commission refer the issue to the rules committee for further study.

In other action Tuesday night:

* The commission approved a one-time policy change allowing property owners with delinquent 2008 taxes to pay in installments rather than being required to pay the entire amount all at once. The measure does not excuse any penalties or prevent accounts from being turned over to the court system in case of continued delinquency, according to deputy trustee Cindy Ray. It simply authorizes the trustee's office to accept partial payments; without the temporary rule change, delinquent payments could not be accepted unless the property owner was paying the entire amount at once.

The county already allows current-year property taxes to be paid in installments.

* The commission approved budget amendments for the school system budget and the county general fund. Mid-year budget amendments account for unexpected revenues and/or expenses; the two amendments approved Tuesday night are primarily to account for grant funds received by the county.

* The commission approved guidelines for naming roads and bridges, over the objections of commissioner J.D. "Bo" Wilson. Wilson did not like a provision of the proposed rules requiring a petition of 25 people, including neighboring property owners, for renaming a county road.

Wilson said the provision could be used to deny a deserved honor due to personality conflicts. He referred, although not by name, to an incident several years back in which veterans objected to a historic marker honoring the late Brig. Gen. Austin C. Shofner which a Marine Corps veterans group wanted to place on the courthouse lawn.

But rules committee chairman Phillip T. "Biff" Farrar said that a 25-name petition was not much of a hardship and would ensure that the neighbors of a county road were in agreement with renaming it.

Farrar said the petition requirement would only apply when renaming a county road. He said it would not apply to honorary names applied to a bridge or a state or federal highway, since those honorary names don't actually change anyone's mailing address.

Commssioners passed the measure 15-1, with Wilson the only negative vote. Commissioners Joyce Tune and Bobby Vannatta were absent.