Windham – Windham Volunteer Fire District (WVFD) held a long discussion on what to do with ambulance 2812 at their most recent meeting. This ambulance has been a “problem child” since day one. The ambulance starts but doesn’t restart immediately if it’s turned off. After having it looked at, it was determined that the problem would be labor intensive and expensive to repair, about $6000-$8000. Now if that was all it would need for a long while, it would make sense to keep it and have the repair completed. Since this ambulance has had chronic issues, it makes more sense to do a chassis swap on it. So, the district decided that they would do a chassis swap rather than repair it. In an ideal situation, the district would just replace the entire squad, but budget constraints dictate that a chassis swap is their best option.
What a chassis swap involves is taking the “patient component’ off the current chassis and placing it on a new chassis /cab. This process would take about 3 months. While the ambulance is being fitted for the chassis and until all the work is completed, the district will receive a loaner. The warranty on the “box” will still be valid and the chassis will be under warranty as well. Now this process isn’t cheap, it’s about $90,000 but it is considerably less expensive than replacing the entire unit. Chief Rich Gano said, he will make the arrangements for the swap.
In other fire news, the board approved the hiring of Mary Griffin as a basic EMT. The district has had 214 calls year to date (04-30-20). For the month of April, there were 27 EMS calls, one fire, one hazardous material and one motor accident. There were also four overdoses. Out of the 27 EMS calls, only 12 were transported to the hospital. Gano said, with the C0VID-19 issue, people are more willing to take the chance that they aren’t serious, rather than go to the hospital. The average response time to a call is 3 minutes and 13 seconds. There are currently 31 people on staff.
Gano said, they are still working on getting the Marks radios calibrated. He is also still looking for grants. A brief discussion was held on considering purchasing a power cot with a matching Bureau of Workers Compensation (BWC) Grant. The cot cost $44,000 and the district would need to match $14,000 of the $44,000. The Board decided to hold off on the cot purchase.
The board was given the financial status of the district. Fiscal Officer Casey Timmons stated, that the budget is very tight and they expect there will be other cuts coming due to COVID-19. Timmons said, she was already forewarned from County Treasurer Brad Combs, that the second-half taxes paid out from taxes collected would be late. He didn’t say how late. Keeping that in mind, they would have to be cautious on how they spend money. Casey is also looking into other options on bill collecting for ambulance runs.
Lastly, Gano said he discovered that Wind Brooke Court now has residents, so he is mapping it out for his staff to learn where it is and how to navigate the area. (Just a side note here, there are very few staff members from Windham, mapping it out is necessary so everyone know where it is and how to get around in there for when they get a call there.)
There being no further business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned.
