Voters To Decide Fee Issue

BENTONVILLE — Northeast Benton County Fire Department officials hope voters in their emergency medical services district see the virtues of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“I personally feel like we have something that works and works well,” Fire Chief Rob Taylor said of the department’s ambulance service.

The department took over ambulance operation from the Volunteer Ambulance Service in 2010. The ambulance service and accompanying EMS district was approved by voters in 1985 and originally paid for by a $15 annual per household fee. Voters approved an increase in the fee from $15 to $40 in 2007.

Taylor and Kara Funk, chairman of the department board, said the Fire Department immediately upgraded the ambulance service from basic life support to advanced life support, which provides patients with more medical treatment before they arrive at a hospital.

That move was promised when the two entities merged. Officials have spent a great deal of time the past two years studying the operation and working on a budget to cover the daily operation. That work has led the board to propose a $60 increase in the annual per household fee for ambulance service to voters. A special election is set for July 9. The $60 increase will meet the needs of the ambulance service for the next six to 10 years, Taylor said.

“In July 2010 when we took over the service, we went immediately to ALS,” Taylor said. “We didn’t know what it was going to take to run the service at this level. People had questions and they should have. We felt like we needed to earn their trust, so we said we’d sit on that (the proposed increase) for two or three years. We’ve been gritting our teeth and selling everything we can muster up to cook to keep running. We’ve been very open with people about what it takes to run the service. We’re able to tell them this is what it’s going to take for the next six to 10 years. We feel confident about the amount we’re asking for. Could we ask for a little less? No, we really can’t.”

The ambulance service looks to upgrade pay and benefits for its personnel and stay competitive within the market, Funk said. The ambulance service needs to upgrade its equipment, Funk and Taylor said. Putting money into reserve for future needs also is essential. The service was able to replace the motor in the ambulance when it went out recently only because there was money from the sale of the former VAS property, Taylor said.

“If that happens next week, we’re in trouble,” Taylor said. “This is something that needs to be taken care of now.”

“We don’t want to pull the ambulance out of service while we go to the bank and see if we can get a loan,” Funk said.

Ruth Jacobs, who lives in the Lost Bridge Village area with her husband Joseph, said the ambulance service is essential for rural residents.

Jacobs, 74, said she and Joseph have made use of the service many times, most recently when her husband became ill unexpectedly last summer.

“It just kind of came up on us,” Jacobs said. “We didn’t know he had some internal bleeding. One day he just got really sick and collapsed. His blood pressure was down to 67 on the high end. I called 911 and a first responder who lives in the neighborhood was here in under five minutes. The ambulance was here in less than 15 minutes. They saved Joe’s life, there’s no doubt about that. They showed up and right away they knew exactly what to do.”

Jacobs and her husband have lived in the area about 21 years, and they said the department is part of the community. That’s a big reason why the community supports them, Jacobs said.

“The people on the board are all local, they are neighbors, they know where you live,” she said. “We’re 30 or 40 minutes away from Mercy out here. We have a lot of confidence in the people who run the service. They’re professional.”

With the decision to pursue an increase from its own emergency medical services district, the department has at least temporarily become an observer rather than a participant in the ongoing debate over providing ambulance service to rural Benton County.

The county has been negotiating with the providers — NEBCO and seven municipal ambulance services — over the costs and possible ways the county can reimburse the cities for those costs.

NEBCO will still want to share any reimbursement from the county’s general funds, since the residents of the district pay taxes and contribute just the same as other county residents, Funk said.

If the county should pursue a funding formula relying on forming an EMS district for the unincorporated areas, NEBCO wouldn’t seek any of that money, Taylor said.

Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4, is chairman of the Quorum Court’s Finance Committee. Allen said the NEBCO model, while it works for that area, would be difficult to replicate in other rural areas served by the municipal fire department ambulance services.

“That would take an awful lot of work,” Allen said. “To find a provider to do that would take a long time and I don’t think we have a lot of time.”

One issue that has held up discussion of providing ambulance service to other areas is the question of billing residents for ambulance calls if they are already paying a fee, Allen said.

The city services have so far indicated they will continue billing individuals for each ambulance call. NEBCO provides the service to residents of the district at no charge beyond the annual fee. That’s another benefit of the operation Taylor hopes district residents will be mindful of when they go to vote.

“Right now you pay $40 per home per year for EMS and $100 a year is what we’re asking for,” Taylor said. “They pay that $100 and they don’t pay another dime the rest of the year. One ambulance call will cost you more than that with any service in the state.”