WABASH - Despite a bleak financial forecast and empty pockets, Wabash County Council Monday approved, 5 to 1, an "accelerated" pay schedule subsidizing LifeMed.

LifeMed is the emergency medical service covering northern Wabash County. The council approved $4,000 per month, but even the accelerated money will not support the ambulance service, said LifeMed president Christopher Brown.

For the first four months of this year, the council paid LifeMed $6,400 monthly. With the acceleration, they will pay $10,625 starting May 2.

"I don't know what we're going to do in October," said council president Gary Nose. With the accelerated schedule, the appropriated funds should be depleted by September, according to council members' arithmetic.

"That won't do it," said Brown. "The $4,000 will not help."

The council is intending to pay $50,000 above the $77,500 currently appropriated, "if it's there," said council member Ted Little.

"That's too many ifs," said Brown.

After living by a verbal agreement since January, Brown wanted a solidified answer from a main supporting entity, either the county council or North Manchester town council. In April the town council tabled any funding considerations to the only ambulance service in the northern half of the county until the county council moved.

The county council is stuck with departments needing more money and having none. The state has not paid the county since November. The first payment of the year should have come in January.

At Monday's meeting, a Verizon Communications representative said the company is adding about $2,000 to the telephone costs for 911 emergency services. The council denied a $7,000 request by the county plan commission to raze several buildings. County departments need approval for expenditures above $100.

Council member Leon Ridenhour suggested the accelerated payment schedule might buy the council time to make a final decision with a better solution.

They considered user fees, either tapped onto telephone service bills or latched onto property taxes. But no motions were made.

"We need to be proactive to avert" the problem in the coming years, said county commissioner Brian Haupert.

"That's exactly what the county commissioners did last year," said Nose about the accelerated payment. But last year the county had the money to add additional appropriations for the service.

Council member Paul Sites, representative from North Manchester and president of Sites Insurance in North Manchester, asked if the town was asked what ambulance service is worth to them.

It was suggested that Timbercrest and Peabody nonprofit retirement communities, along with Manchester College, should add more money to their budgets to supplement LifeMed's costs.

"You've got three entities who are not carrying their load," said Ridenhour.

The two retirement communities and the college do not pay property taxes but, in 2001, contributed a total of $25,000 to LifeMed.

"Is it fair that I use my $90,000 of credit based on a verbal agreement, saying everything is going to work out?" asked Brown. "I don't think so."

"I will stay in business," said Brown late into the discussion. "But it will not be in emergency services." [[In-content Ad]]