With the beginning of this year’s budget season, Coffee County Emergency Medical Service’s biggest change for the 2026-27 budget is in the line item for fuel costs.

“Everybody… knows that fuel has shot up a couple of bucks,” said EMS Director Michael Bonner during the March 19 Ambulance Authority meeting.

“Given the news, I don’t see that changing soon,” he said.

Commissioner Frank Watkins said that fuel will always be a guess because the price is not locked in and will be whatever the market bares.

Bonner also estimates additional vehicle maintenance costs for the aging fleet of ambulances.

“We are at 90% of this year’s budget for vehicle maintenance,” Bonner said, explaining that with the fleet getting older and having more miles on them the units are going to need additional repairs.

“Things (break) when you have 220,000 miles on a vehicle. Since we are having trouble getting new vehicles, I feel that we are going to have to increase our maintenance budget to keep the old vehicles in shape.”

Currently the service has eight ambulances that range from a 2012 Ford with 231,108 miles on it to a 2022 Ford with 60,446 miles and in between are five Chevy units all with over 150,000 miles.

Five of the units are able to have their patient care compartment (the back section of the ambulance) replaced, a cheaper alternative to purchasing a new ambulance.

EMS is also anticipating additional payroll costs for mandatory overtime now that the service has more employees.

Bonner said that when the county was facing severe shortages of EMTs and Medics, the payroll was relatively low. Now that the service is almost fully staffed, the payroll will be more substantial.

The Ambulance Authority approved the budget proposal that will be submitted to the Finance Committee.