A one-year contract between the county’s board of DD and OAPSE Local 5 was approved by the county commissioners at their regular Thursday meeting.

The contract was an extension of the current three-year pact that expired this spring. It gave staff a two percent pay increase.

Starting salary for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree will now be $28,979. That compares with $28,411 for the same position in the last contract. A beginning instructor with a master’s degree will now make $31,576 compared to $30,957 for that position in 2010. Starting instructional aides will now make $16,236 a year. These positions are for 182 working days that are seven hours in length with eight paid holidays.

Salary for a starting secretary II is now at $24,761 for 240 working days at eight hours per day and 10 paid holidays. Starting custodian’s annual salary is $23,255 for 250 working days at eight hours per day and 10 paid holidays and starting cooks will now make $11.09 an hour.

Buddy Fry, director of the Lawrence County Emergency Medical Services, reported that the new EMS has so far brought in $652,000 in patient billing.

“That represents three months of collection,” Fry said. “We have spent about $1 million. We are about where we expected to be. We still project July to be the month to be representative of what we are taking in on a rolling basis.”

Fry also said the EMS has multiple vehicle problems because of the aging ambulances the service inherited from its predecessor, the Southeast Ohio Emergency Medical Services. The EMS recently took possession of a new $91,000 ambulance. Right now the vehicle is not outfitted with a permanent radio.

“We might have to put the new one into service this week,” Fry said. “At this minute we have no backup truck in the county.”

If that happens, a portable radio will be placed in that vehicle.

In other action Commissioners Les Boggs, Paul Herrell and Bill Pratt:

• Approved the termination of Richard Chandler and Jason Smith from the EMS;

• Agreed to study a request from County Treasurer Stephen Burcham to transfer funds for bank fees and tax bills;

• Approved a Community Block Development Grant for $90,000 — $70,000 for tearing down abandoned structures and $20,000 for a possible cooperative effort with water companies to bring water service to rural areas.