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Commissioner urges creation of Chilton County Health Care Authority after fatal house fire
Summary
After a recent house fire that strained ambulance availability, Commissioner Billingsley told the commission he will move tomorrow to form the Chilton County Health Care Authority (CCARE) to add local transport capacity; commissioners asked detailed questions about funding, bylaws and whether authority staff would be county employees.
Commissioner Billingsley proposed establishing the Chilton County Health Care Authority — referred to in the meeting as CCARE — to create local, two-person rescue units and four stations to provide transport capability and relieve contracted ambulance service RPS.
“Friday morning at 01:49AM until Friday night at 11:59, we had 20 EMS calls in this county,” Billingsley said, urging the commission to act after a recent house fire led to multiple patients and no immediately available RPS ambulance. He described a response in which volunteer chiefs and neighboring agencies provided transport when RPS units were assigned elsewhere.
Billingsley framed the authority as a gap-filling measure rather than a replacement for RPS: “RPS is gonna be our primary transport…I’m not trying to start a Chilton County ambulance service. I’m trying to fill in the void,” he said. He told commissioners the authority would staff two people per shift, with the expectation it could provide lift assistance, basic transport and backup to RPS.
Commissioners pressed on governance and finance. One asked whether authority employees would be county employees eligible for RSA retirement; the chair and Billingsley said authority employees would be employees of the authority, not county employees. Commissioners also said they had removed eminent-domain language from the draft bylaws.
On funding, Billingsley said the commission is not being asked to fund the authority now: the authority is expected to define its operating plan and funding sources (grants, donations, fees, tax designations, public–private partnerships or other sources) and may return to the commission for help. “If they can’t come up with a way to fund it, they may kill the deal,” Billingsley said. Several commissioners said they supported the concept in principle but asked for concrete funding and staffing plans from the authority before endorsing it.
Billingsley said he will make a motion at the next regular meeting to establish the authority, record bylaws, and open nominations for five seats on the authority’s board. The commission directed staff to get clarifications from their attorney on specific bylaw language before action.
Next steps: Billingsley said he will move tomorrow for a formal vote to create the authority and open nominations; the commission asked the county attorney to provide clarifications in advance of that meeting.
