Springdale Agreeable to Ambulance Payment

— The City Council served notice Monday that Springdale would no longer subsidize Benton County through its fire department after this year.

By The Numbers

Benton County

Emergency Medical Services Subsidy Distribution for 2013:

City Money

Bella Vista $10,000

Bentonville $52,000

Gravette $33,000

NEBCO $35,000

Pea Ridge $11,000

Rogers $77,000

Siloam Springs $52,000

Springdale $30,000

Total $300,000

Source: Benton County

The fire department provides ambulance service to portions of rural Benton County and Washington County, as well as inside the city limits. Washington County has paid the fire department for that service for many years, said Fire Chief Mike Irwin.

Only recently has Benton County began to repay Springdale for service in that county. Benton County’s rate of payment is less than that of Washington County, Irwin said.

“I don’t think Springdale taxpayers should subsidize Benton County,” said Alderman Eric Ford.

“Our priority should be to the taxpayers of Springdale,” said Alderman Mike Overton.

Benton County Judge Bob Clinard came to the council’s committee meeting to ask Springdale to continue to provide service through the end of the year. The quorum court is trying to increase its payments to the eight ambulance providers in the county, Clinard said, by increasing each year the amount budgeted.

“We’re probably not as aggressive as some of the providers would like,” Clinard said. “We don’t have a way to fund these payments yet.”

Springdale is scheduled to receive $30,000 under a schedule drawn up by Benton County. It received $12,862 in 2012 and $9,495 in 2011, according to Clinard.

“We have verbal agreements with six cities that they would approve contacts for 2013,” Clinard said.

If it would not agree, the city could give notice and end its ambulance service in July, Clinard said.

Springdale has contracts with Lowell and Bethel Heights for ambulance service to those Benton County cities. The area affected would mainly be to the east of Lowell and Bethel Heights in the Hickory Creek and Pleasure Heights areas.

Springdale had asked for $70,000 in 2013, Irwin said, to repay the cost to the city for the rural Benton County ambulance service.

“If we had paid what every provider asked for,” Clinard said, “it would have been $1 million.”

George Spence, the attorney for Benton County, said some of those ambulance calls could have been to Springdale residents who were at Beaver Lake in the affected area.

Alderman Rick Evans said he had been at the Hickory Creek lake access when ambulances were called.

“I’d hate to think that people there could not get an ambulance to come,” Evans said.

Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse suggested agreeing to a contract through the end of the year, but drawing a line in the sand for following years.

“We plan to go to a percentage plan, like that we use with Washington County, for everyone in 2014,” Sprouse said.

The percentage plan charges according to the number of calls in the areas outside of the city based on the total cost of the city’s ambulance service, Irwin said.

The majority of the council appeared to be in favor of a contract through the end of the year, said Overton.

“But the minority opinion looks like it will become the majority at the start of next year,” Overton said. “We’ll need Benton County to pay the same way everyone else does.”

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