VIDALIA, La. – Med Express will serve Concordia Parish again beginning Aug. 4, less than one year after the ambulance company discontinued service in the parish.

&uot;We plan to offer full service,&uot; said Public Relations Director Shannon Pennington, who said he will meet today with Sheriff Randy Maxwell to discuss the issue.

Pennington added that the decision to reenter the parish was made by CEO Mark Major. The announcement was made in Monday night’s Concordia Parish Police Jury meeting.

&uot;How long are you going to stay this time?&uot;, asked Jim Graves, general manager of American Medical Response. AMR serves Concordia Parish, with Vidalia Fire Department serving mostly inside Vidalia’s town limits.

Graves added that when Med Express discontinued service Aug. 16, other parties involved in emergency response in Concordia Parish only got three days’ notice. At the time, Med Express had served Concordia for about five years.

Earlier, the jury voted to pay a $2,200 balance owed to Mississippi Medical Examiner Steve Haynes for seven autopsies Haynes performed as early as 1998.

Finance Committee Chairman Randy Temple said Louisiana law requires a coroner to get police jury approval for costs of more than $300 per autopsy. Each of the autopsies in question cost $475 to $500.

But Juror Gene Allen, himself a mortician, said sending autopsies to Shreveport, which the jury has done in the past, costs $600. &uot;You’re getting a bargain,&uot;&160;he said.

Assistant District Attorney Madaline Gibbs said that when Haynes charges $500, he is only breaking even.

&uot;And these (autopsies) are important to our office – we have to have them in murder cases,&uot; Gibbs said. &uot;These would fall under reasonable D.A.’s expenses.&uot;

The jury also voted to write Coroner Sarah Lee, asking her to get families to pay the cost of autopsies in cases when the family requests the autopsy and the autopsy is not needed for a criminal case.

Still, Temple said that none of the autopsies paid Monday fell into that category.

He added that the autopsies will probably be paid out of the criminal court fund, though that fund is already strapped for cash.

Temple also said that the jury’s overall budget doesn’t look much better despite fair sales tax collections and a modest increase in severance taxes.

&uot;You may be looking at, in the last quarter (of 2000), being out of money, and we don’t have anywhere to borrow from,&uot; he said.

&uot;Our sales taxes look okay, but we can’t borrow from that for the general fund.&uot;