ANDOVER — The Select Board accepted four bids totaling $189,441 for roadwork during their meeting Tuesday at the Town Hall.

Steve Swasey Excavation of Andover was the only bidder for the projects on Lohnes, East B Hill and Upton roads. Some of the work involves adding riprap to ditches, but most is replacing culverts, Selectmen Brian Mills and Justin Thacker said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency money from June and December 2023 storms will pay for the work. However, it may take months before the town receives it, Thacker said in July.

Because of the lack of money, the town will hold a special meeting Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Town Hall to vote on obtaining a bank loan to begin repairing the close to $3 million in storm damage to roads and bridges. The Select Board will meet at 5 p.m.

In other business, selectmen approved spending $1,600 for Emergency Medical Technician training at United Training Center in Lewiston for an Andover volunteer firefighter. Fire Chief Jim Adler asked for the payment, saying the firefighter is 18 years old and has received fire science training at Region 9 School of Applied Technology in Mexico. He’s been with the department for a year and “he’s got the fever” and interest to be a firefighter and EMT, he said.

Andover Fire Chief Jim Adler, seen speaking at a December 2023 Select Board meeting at the Town Hall, asked the board Tuesday to spend $1,600 for a volunteer firefighter to attend an EMT training course at United Training Center in Lewiston. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times file

Adler also said most volunteers can’t afford to pay the $1,600 for the EMT course and that the town would alienate many people who might be interested in taking the course if they are expected to pay it themselves.

There is also the cost of $5,000 for each firefighter’s turnout gear, which the Fire Department covers. For the first six months to a year of volunteering, Adler said, firefighters choose from available turnout gear that may not fit them well. When he believes “that they are going to invest their time and stick with it,” he purchases the firefighter’s new gear, he said.

Adler said two-thirds of the Fire Department’s calls are for rescue EMT services, which is about 80 or 90 calls of the 150 calls they receive. “And probably about a third of those we have not responded to because we don’t have (enough) EMTs,” he said.

The Fire Department has five EMTs. However, three of them are full-time firefighters in Auburn or Rumford and if the volunteers are working their full-time jobs, the town does not have any EMTs available for duty.