Council gets one ambulance bid

After receiving only one response to its request for proposals by the April 12 deadline, from Chickasaw Ambulance Service, the Chickasaw County Ambulance Council will meet in joint session with the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.The Ambulance Council has no funding stream of its own but serves to make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors, and its decisions are subject to funding by the supervisors.Chickasaw Ambulance Service owner Jeremy McGrath made the lone bid, and he gave two pricing options, each scaling up over a potential three-fiscal-year contract, option two being $500 to $700 a month higher, but both were about $30,000 a month.Under the current contact, which McGrath opted out of in late December, the county has provided the service with $50,000 per year.If the county decides to fund it, fiscal 2020 budgets have already been set, so options are for funds to come from the ending balance of an existing county budget or “reserves.”— For more on this story, see the April 19 New Hampton Tribune.