PARKERSBURG – Wood County officials will be discussing support for Camden Clark’s Ambulance Service at Monday’s meeting of the Wood County Commission.

The commission is scheduled to talk with officials from WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center and the Camden Clark Ambulance Service at 11 a.m. at the Wood County Resiliency Center to discuss what kind of financial support the county might be able to provide to help fund the ambulance service locally.

The meeting was originally scheduled for July 6, but had to be postponed due to the fire at the Peoples Cartage warehouse in south Parkersburg this past week and efforts to put it out.

Wood County Commission President Blair Couch was contacted by the hospital leadership late last year in seeking financial support for the ambulance service.

Couch said the meeting Monday will involve discussing numbers and what the county will be able to do.

“They are going to give us a proposal and we are going to ask questions,” he said. “They are going to have a request and I think they are going to want ongoing financial support.

“They are going to give us numbers. The commission with have our own discussions on if we want to go with that. Do we look at other options?”

In March 2025, St. Joseph’s Ambulance Service announced it was ceasing operations. Through a variety of efforts, the Camden Clark Ambulance Service was able to provide more coverage to the area and was able to increase its size by around 40 people, hiring many of the people who previously had worked for St. Joseph’s. The county was also able to purchase some of the former St. Joseph’s ambulances for Camden Clark.

The county has written three checks to Camden Clark Ambulance since they took over, including $900,309 to buy ambulances, $71,963.20 for salary enhancements and $86,363.64 for EMS Equipment for a total of $1,058,635.84 since March of 2025, officials said.

Camden Clark has been able to spread out ambulance placements at substations around the area with ambulances stationed at the Wood County 911 Center to better cover Interstate 77 and U.S. 50 as well at a station at the Southgate Center location to better cover the southside. Ambulances are also located in Vienna and Williamstown to allow for a quicker response.

County Commissioners have praised the new distribution of personnel and equipment throughout the community.

The county commissioners said they will be requesting financial information from the ambulance service and the medical center as well as an amount Camden Clark officials think the county could provide and what that money would go towards.

The commissioners are planning to have questions they want answered, including if the ambulance service and medical center want an annual amount or if it will be allotments given out at different times, based on needs.

Couch had said the county would look at ways it could fund the request as different options have been suggested.

Commissioners have discussed putting an emergency services levy on the ballot for voters to decide on that would raise a set amount of money with Camden Clark Ambulance getting a portion. They have talked about also providing local volunteer fire departments with funding through such a levy which could eliminate the current Wood County Fire Fee as a result.

They also discussed implementing a special district sales tax of up to one percent countywide that would provide funding for the ambulance service. If a municipality already has a 7% sales tax, it would go up to 8%.

Wood County 911 Director Dale McEwuen and Patsy Hardy, chairwoman of the Wood County Ambulance Authority are expected to attend Monday’s meeting.