The Mehlville Fire Protection District has a new narcotics inventory control system on ambulances this year.

The district spent $37,000 of the equipment and supplies budget in January on a narcotics inventory control system.

The new system “will provide increased overall security, electronic DEA (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) reporting, internal alerting for any inventory errors and notification of expired narcotics, so a great enhancement to everything we’re already doing here,” said Chief Financial Officer Brian Bond at the March 10 Board of Directors meeting.

The district has had a past case of an employee stealing drugs, at a time when no current officials overeeing the MFPD were in their current jobs between 2003 and 2004.

An Oakville resident, who was then a deputy chief for emergency medical services and a district employee since 1985, was charged in 2004 with six separate counts of stealing a controlled substance and one count of possession of a controlled substance for incidents that allegedly occurred monthly from November 2003 to May 2004.

The employee was responsible for obtaining controlled substances from St. Anthony’s Medical Center for Mehlville ambulance workers to assist in patient treatment, “became addicted to controlled substances and began to order more controlled substance,” police said.