Scotts Hill agenda highlights EMS trailer, police hires, budget planning

Fourteen generators, an EMS trailer and a police hiring contract put Scotts Hill’s day-to-day safety and utility reliability at the center of Monday’s board agenda. For a town of 877 residents with 18 municipal employees, the decisions reached at Town Hall carry outsized weight for water service, emergency response and the cost of running local government.

The board’s new business list focused first on emergency readiness. Members took up approval of the placement for the EMS trailer, insurance for the trailer and bids to get the trailer put out for service. They also considered the Henderson County Hazard Mitigation Plan, an item tied to the town’s broader effort to harden basic services against storm damage and power loss.

That planning has a specific local target: Scotts Hill and Decatur and Henderson counties have already sought FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding through TEMA to install 14 generators so the water system can keep operating during outages caused by natural disasters or interruptions to the electrical grid. The town’s location in both Decatur and Henderson counties makes that work more than a paperwork exercise, since emergency response and recovery have to be coordinated across county lines. Henderson County Emergency Management Agency says it works with Scotts Hill and other local jurisdictions to prepare for and recover from disasters.

Public safety staffing was also on the agenda. The board considered approval of a police contract for new officers, a sign the town is trying to stabilize or expand coverage rather than simply hold the line. Travis Dunavant has served as police chief since 2022, and the hiring item places the police department’s staffing needs alongside the fire and EMS discussions already in motion.

Scotts Hill’s volunteer fire department gives that emergency picture more context. The department says it has 16 volunteers, has served the town and surrounding area since 1979, and maintains service agreements with Decatur County, Henderson County and the City of Lexington. It has also used grant funding to buy turnout gear, air packs, radio equipment and a Class A fire pumper, underscoring how much the town leans on outside funding and mutual aid to keep response capacity intact.

The board also took up first reading of the FY2026-2027 budget ordinance, one of the clearest signals that next year’s spending plan is already taking shape. Alongside that came routine but important updates from the general manager on TDEC, the DRA SCADA project, generators and the water plant, plus reports from police, fire, grant status and the CDBG grant. Even a discussion of flag poles at the city park fit the same pattern: a small town sorting out the practical details that shape service levels, costs and the look of public spaces.