Fentress County will expand its ambulance station after being awarded a $997,000 Community Development Block Grant Thursday.
Fentress County Executive Jimmy Johnson said the county has seen growth over the past several years and that the station is currently not fit to handle the growth. Johnson said it was great for the county to receive this funding for the project.
“It will better serve the community, it will better serve our service, and also better serve our employees that are there, which are there 24 hours a day,” Johnson said. “With that being said, we are just tickled, we are very, very tickled to get this grant.”
Fentress County EMS Director Daniel Coleman said the expansion will include expanded bedrooms, a day room, and additional bays to store ambulances. Coleman said the expansion will also provide a larger training room for the EMS Department.
“Over about the last year, we have offered somewhere around 100 continuing education hours through our training room,” Coleman said. “When you take a training room thats comfortably seating about 20 people in it and you start cramming 30 or 45 people in that room, it gets kind of tight. So we wanted to expand that room so that our crews are more comfortable.”
Johnson said receiving a large chunk of money from the state relieves a burden off county taxpayers. Johnson said without the grant, the county would have to accommodate 18 cents of its tax rate for several years to afford the project.
“You’re looking at a major increase of something, you know, you have to have revenue, and so really you don’t know how you would actually have to do to start this,” Johnson said. “That’s what we have done since we have been in office, with the great help of the commission that I have had the opportunity to work with over the last seven and a half years, it’s just what they try to do and what they work with, and let us try to find stuff.”
Johnson said the project will have to be bid out and expects more progress to come within the next two to three weeks. Coleman said the EMS Department is thankful to be awarded the grant and said the expansion will be a big improvement for Fentress County.
CDBG funds are awarded by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) for water and sewer projects, health and safety projects, and other improvements to improve the quality of life in Tennessee. TNECD awarded an estimated $26.5 million to 44 communities.