Supervisors rebuffed county fire volunteers at their informal Thursday meeting over whether to privatize ambulance response in Warren County outside the City of Vicksburg.

While the quality of service of ambulances based at Vicksburg Fire Department locations to calls outside the city limits remains good, response time is one area of possible improvement, according to the county fire district volunteers.

Standard response for emergency medical attention and rescue is 10 to 15 minutes, said Culkin volunteer Sabrina Carrith, who addressed supervisors along with Culkin Capt. Chuck Tate and Warren County Fire Coordinator Kelly Worthy.

Response from Vicksburg-based units has run closer to 20 minutes, said Carrith, who is also an EMT with American Medical Response, a private service provider.

Vicksburg and Warren County have jointly funded the ambulance service here since 1967, when they assumed the responsibility from local funeral homes. Fees, less than private providers charge, are imposed and there is a shared subsidy from general city and county revenue. Calculation of amounts due have provoked strong disagreement several years.

This year, expiration looms Sept. 30 for the ambulance service agreement exhaustively debated by the mayor and aldermen and supervisors. It calls for Warren County to pay to pay $300 per run outside the city limits, regardless of whether for emergency life support or a basic run such as a patient transfer.

Thursday, supervisors showed no interest in changing and were unified in approving the current flat fee arrangement. Records show the county paid $166,500 for runs through December 2006, with a $2,338 credit for fees determined to have been paid earlier. However, no invoices covering runs from January to June have been received. In previous years, about 400 non-city responses were the quarterly norm, for a projected cost of $480,000. County supervisors approved a budget for the coming year estimating more runs, at a cost of $681,327 to be paid to the city toward its total projected $2.7 million cost of ambulance and rescue services in the 12 months starting Oct. 1.

A factor that continues to make calculating a “fair share” difficult is that city property owners “pay twice” because their assessments include full city and county tax levies. Vicksburg has also beefed up the service during the past year, adding new, top-of-the-line vehicles and increasing from four to five the number of ambulances available 24 hours per day.

Privatization, city and county, has been considered in past discussions, but has not moved past getting quotes of billing and availability. Tate said using volunteer services for rescue purposes could be achieved “for a minimal amount of money” and the current with the city agreement is flawed because it doesn’t lock in standards for response time.

“Nothing has ever been put on paper,” Worthy said, adding using a private service would at least guarantee up to three ambulances stationed outside the city.

“You buy response time,” Worthy said. “They’ll put as many ambulances as they need to meet that.”

Culkin Fire Department is awaiting completion in October of a custom-built truck to handle an array of purposes, including both brush fires and rescue assistance.