The fact that Chattooga County Commissioner Jason Winters released the 2011 Budget on Monday of this week has been over-shadowed by the continuing conversation about the future of the Chattooga County EMS.  Commissioner Winter’s budget for the Amubulance Service has been presented at $1,017,800.00 for 2011.  According to the commissioner a large part of that number goes to EMS salaries.

Whatever the decision about ambulance service in Chattooga County it is not going to be a decision made within weeks, but rather months. As coverage of the meeting has been viewed and heard by Chattooga County residents, some people have been passionately against the idea of privatizing the ambulance service and some have been supportive – but many people just have a lot of questions. 

One of the questions presented at Tueday’s meeting was would it be possible to have Floyd or Redmond simply add an ambulance as a back-up of Chattooga County’s EMS.  Niether Floyd nor Redmond seemed ready to answer that question – but both indicated that they would consider the idea although they were not sure how that would work for them or Chattooga County EMS.