Panel: Use Reserve For Ambulance Service

BENTONVILLE — A panel of Benton County’s justices of the peace recommended Thursday the county pay $924,394.23 out of reserve for rural ambulance service in 2014, with a future funding method yet to be determined.

County Judge Bob Clinard told the Public Safety Committee the county has no legal requirement to provide ambulance service to residents of the unincorporated areas but officials have been exploring the question for several years with an eye toward paying a share of the cost.

“We think we’ve decided that we need to come up with a funding method to provide for that service,” Clinard said at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting.

Ambulance service in Benton County is provided by seven municipal fire departments — Bella Vista, Bentonville, Gravette, Pea Ridge, Rogers, Siloam Springs and Springdale — along with the Northeast Benton County Fire Department.

Those departments provided the service to county residents at no additional cost until the question of reimbursement was raised and the county began paying the departments a subsidy in 2011, while continuing to discuss a long-term solution. NEBCO recently decided to seek an increase of the annual fees residents of the Emergency Medical Services District pay and has withdrawn from talks over money.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend paying the department what they requested for 2014 and to send the recommendation on to the Quorum Court’s Finance Committee, which is to meet Tuesday.

The justices of the peace spent about two hours discussing cost estimates with Fire Chief Greg Neely of Siloam Springs fielding the bulk of the questions since his city requested the largest amount.

Neely said Siloam Springs figured the amount of its fire and EMS budget attributable to the ambulance service and then calculated the cost that calls outside the city. He said county calls made up 28 percent of ambulance calls and estimated the cost at $416,422.

“These costs are very real,” Neely told the justices of the peace.

Several justices of the peace suggested the departments should include any revenue they receive from patient billing in their calculations and possibly reduce their estimated costs. Neely said the lag time in collecting from Medicare and

Medicaid and private billing makes that almost impossible. Many costs go unpaid,

he said. He said his budget shows about $1 million in ambulance billing every year but normally collects less than half that amount.

Marshal Watson, the county’s emergency services administrator, briefed the justices of the peace on the cities’ requests and ways the county could pay for the service beyond 2014. Watson said a county system has a startup cost of $3 million and annual operating cost of $2 million. Paying the current providers costs about half that.

A millage increase could raise money for ambulance service, as could a sales tax increase, or the county could form an emergency medical service district covering unincorporated areas. A per household fee assessed to the residents of the district would then pay for the ambulance service cost.

Watson said the per household fee would provide a subsidy to the cities to make sure the service is available, not a membership fee which would offset any expense if an ambulance is called for. The fire departments would continue to bill individuals for the service as they are. The justices of the peace made no recommendation on any of the options.