Jacobs appointed to VCAD board

Nevada Daily Mail

The Vernon County Ambulance District Board is back to full strength after the board voted unanimously Thursday night to appoint April Jacobs to fill the seat vacated earlier this year when Nancy Jeffries resigned after moving out of her subdistrict and James McKenzie declined the position after winning as the only write-in candidate during the April election.

VCAD director Leland Splitter said that he had confirmed with the county clerk, Mike Buehler that Jacobs did live in the correct subdistrict.

Jacobs was the only person to respond to the board's call for letters of candidacy after McKenzie declined the position.

The appointment will be for the remainder of the three-year term that started this spring.

In other business, VCAD is facing a premium increase in their worker's compensation insurance. Board member Chris Mason later said this is due to a combination of reasons; the ambulance wreck near Harrisonville in 2014, and repeated late or missed premium payments in 2014-15.

"It was probably a good thing I was sitting down when Denise handed me this the other day," said Splitter. He said the current insurance provider had projected a yearly premium of between $75,000 and $80,000. "Needless to say, that was about $12,000 on the short side."

"It came in at $91,686," Splitter said. The first payment of $27,505 would be due on Aug. 28.

VCAD had previously paid $45,000 per year for worker's compensation insurance.

Splitter said other options are being explored and he planned to present several to the board at the August meeting.

* The board voted unanimously to approve adoption of the Medicare and Medicaid Employee or Contractor Code of Conduct.

* The board voted unanimously to adopt a policy regarding fraud and abuse of public funds.

* VCAD responded to 72 emergency calls in June. Of those, 13 resulted in direct transports to a higher level of care in Joplin or Kansas City, and five were transported by helicopter. There were 56 total transfers.

The total number of calls for the month was 235 with a year to date total on June 30 of 1378.

With no other public business on the agenda, the board voted unanimously to enter closed session with the reason given of litigation.