Chief Marv Koorn of North Whidbey Fire and Rescue said 2006 has been the busiest year ever for the district.

“We have handled over 1,600 calls with an all-volunteer department,” he told the district commissioners at November’s monthly meeting.

As a contrast, Oak Harbor, with 12 paid firefighters, has handled 1,300 calls for service and Central Whidbey, with six paid firefighters, has handled 1,042 calls.

“We are only going to be receiving more calls in the upcoming years,” Koorn said. “EMS has handled over 6,000 island-wide this year. This is mainly due to our aging population and they are doing a lot more off-island transports.”

Koorn and his staff presented a slide show about the proposed cooperative agreement developed by the district between Whidbey General Hospital and emergency service providers for Advanced Life Support, (ALS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) systems to be implemented.

Koorn explained the ALS system would involve paramedics and the BLS would be staffed by EMTs.

“By having BLS units respond to non-life-threatening calls like someone falling out of a chair who needed assistance, this would keep the ALS units available for emergency situations such as vehicle accidents that involve injuries,” Koorn said.

A plan was outlined where five paramedic units would be stragecialy located up and down the island that could be moved around in case of emergencies.

“The ALS units would work in conjunction with five full-time BLS units working out of the local fire departments,” Koorn said.

The new BLS system would have paid on-call people working 12-hour shifts.

The plan is to phase in the new system over a 12-month period beginning Jan. 1.

“We hope to have it up and running on a functional trial period by Oct. 7, and be able to go on line by Jan. 1, 2008,” Koorn said. “This is the North Whidbey Fire and Rescue’s vision of how it should operate and I think it is the most cost-effective plan.”

Other island fire districts will also have input on the plan.

The hospital would be providing $368,000 for equipment and supplies and the fire departments would be responsible for staffing, using money from the EMS levy voters approved in September.

Koorn explained how the hourly on-call people would be paid and what responsibilities and duties they would have and perform while on call.

“We can afford the program,” he said.

“It’s pretty obvious we are heading in this direction. Even though we are an all-volunteer department, I don’t think we can continue to operate without some kind of regimental on-call,” Commissioner Ron Muzzall said.

The commissioners voted approval to move ahead and continue to develop the BLS program with the hospital.

Also, Koorn reported the fire district received an “absolute clean bill of health” from the Washington State Auditor’s Office.

The auditor’s office evaluated the fire district’s accountability for public resources in the areas of expenditures, general cash receipts, small and attractive assets and payroll, and also audited other areas for compliance with certain applicable state laws.

Areas examined during the audit were selected using financial transactions from Jan. 1, 2003, through Dec. 31, 2005.

Some of the areas examined included required annual financial schedules, risk management, ethics, open public meetings and public records requests.

After examination, the auditor’s office determined, “The district complied with state laws and regulations and its own policies and procedures in the areas we examined. Internal controls were adequate to safeguard public assets.”

Koorn said there were only a couple of areas where minor improvements could be made.

“Overall, we are doing a very fine job,” he said.