The Newton County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a bid from Waste Pro for a dumping site landfill in Kemper County at their Aug. 1 meeting. The supervisors accepted bids for transport from several contractors but agreed to continue picking up garbage with county trucks.
In May, the county’s former landfill contractor, Waste Management notified the board that it would be raising its prices because the company didn’t think it was making enough money from the previous contract.
The board then voted to open bids to find a new landfill contractor when the contract to take the county’s garbage to Waste Management’s landfill in Lake ended.
The supervisors and County Emergency Management Director John Williamson also spoke with representatives from LifeCare EMS about the recent cases of ambulance shortages for emergency calls.
Board President Joe Alexander said he has seen several instances where there have been no available ambulances to respond to an emergency call and said the liability if a patient wasn’t attended to in a timely manner would fall on the supervisors.
LifeCare EMS Operations Manager Leigh Ann Magee said that Newton County is usually one of the busiest for their coverage area, which includes Scott and Leake Counties. She also said that there is currently a shortage of paramedics in the state and that there was an effort to train and hire more for all of the ambulance services.
“This is not an easy county to recruit for because it is extremely busy and it is a tough county to work in,” Magee said.
LifeCare EMS is based in Carthage and is contracted by the county to provide ambulance service.
