The Beaufort County Regional Medical Authority held a special called meeting at 9 a.m. Friday and appointed Ron Buzzeo as the new chairman.

Beaufort County Commissioner and medical board member Frankie Waters said any three of the new board members could have served as chairman: himself, Buzzeo or Jerry Langley. Langley declined to be in the running for the position, and Waters said he was instead chosen to oversee the management of the county’s two compensation plans — the planning administrator of the 403(B) compensation plan and a trustee of the 457(B) plan.

According to county manager Brian Alligood, the plans are outstanding liabilities for the county regarding retirement obligations to employees, which should be handled before the hospital board is dissolved.

In July, the Board of Commissioners voted to dissolve the Beaufort County Regional Medical Authority, which managed an approximately $6.5 million trust fund to cover the costs of any liabilities from the county hospital before it was taken over by Vidant Health in 2011.

The $6.5 million was set to revert to the authority board in September of next year and would be used at the discretion of the Board of Commissioners, who previously said the money would remain in a trust fund to be used only for health care services.

But after the county commissioners voted to replace the members of the board with all commissioners and then voted to dissolve board altogether, Commissioner Hood Richardson said he was concerned that it would lead to Vidant cutting back on medical care in Washington.

“We have two compensation plans that are still active that we’re trying to dissolve,” Waters said. “The authority is going to continue to exist until the IRS reviews and signs off on both plans.”

He said the authority board voted in Buzzeo without any problems.

“It was very smooth,” Waters said. “We’re just preceding to make sure that the compensation plan…I call it pension, is completely signed off by IRS.”

Buzzeo began his new role as soon as the vote was decided, “five minutes after the meeting started,” according to Waters.

“You can’t totally dissolve (the board) until every ‘t’ is crossed and every ‘i’ is dotted, regardless of how quickly you want to do something,” he said.