BENTONVILLE — County officials were at a loss about how to proceed on the rural ambulance service issue in the wake of Tuesday’s rejection by voters of a funding plan.

“Go back and start over,” County Judge Bob Clinard said Wednesday morning. “I’m going to go right back to the Quorum Court with the same options we had two or three years ago. It’s their decision how to proceed.”

With all 15 precincts counted the final, but unofficial, total shows 1,134 votes, or 33 percent, were in favor of the proposal and 2,346 votes, or 67 percent, were against it. The Election Commission will meet at 2 p.m. Feb. 18 to review provisional ballots. The commission will certify the results at 2 p.m. Feb. 21.

The Quorum Court in September created an emergency medical services district with an $85 annual fee to make ambulance service available. The county estimated the fee would generate $1.2 million annually. The district would have included all of the unincorporated areas except the area served by the Northeast Benton County Fire Department.

Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and chairman of the Finance Committee, scheduled a meeting for 6 p.m. tonight to discuss ambulance funding.

“Our first order of business is are we going to commit to paying any more money through the rest of the year,” Allen said. “If the committee decides to fund it, we’ll delve into how to fund it.”

The county budgeted $950,000 to pay the cities for rural ambulance service. That was reduced to $236,000, which will pay the cities through March.

Making a decision on funding for 2014 will only be the beginning of the process, Allen said.

“This is just putting a Band-Aid on it for 2014,” he said. “We’re going to have to figure out a way to dig deeper into our operating revenue for the foreseeable future or figure out some other way to raise revenue.”

Patrick Carr, justice of the peace for District 12 and chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said he didn’t know what the next step should be. Carr said he planned to mull the results and talk to Clinard before deciding whether to call a meeting to discuss options.

Previous options included working with the cities to provide ambulance service to the rural areas, seeking a private provider, establishing a county-operated service and some combination of those three options, Clinard said.

“Whatever we do now is going to have to go back to a vote of the people,” Clinard said. “That’s going to take some time to decide. What happens between April and the end of the year, I don’t know.”

Siloam Springs, Rogers and Springdale officials have said they will not continue to provide ambulance service without a funding plan. Fire Chief Greg Neely of Siloam Springs said the county has to find a solution to the problem.

“While the city of Siloam Springs would have preferred that the county EMS vote would have passed, this was, and continues to be, a problem for the county to resolve,” Neely said. “We stand ready to continue to provide this quality lifesaving service to the unincorporated areas, and will do so as long as an agreeable payment structure remains in effect. Should the county make the determination to cease funding the city of Siloam Springs for this service, the city of Siloam Springs will be obligated to cease to provide this service beyond our borders.”

Holland Hayden, Siloam Springs’ communications director, said the city’s board is considering ending service immediately if funding ends March 31.

Rogers Fire Chief Tom Jenkins said his department has hired six irefighters/EMTs to man the ambulance that would carry the responsibility for serving the area east of the city. The city decided the demands for service inside and outside the city are growing and the new personnel will be necessary even if service outside the city is halted, Jenkins said.

“It’s a necessity for us,” Jenkins said. “The county calls acted as a catalyst for us to do that, but we needed to do it anyway. We made the decision because it’s the right thing to do and it’s the right time to do it. If the county decides not to continue funding rural ambulance service, they certainly won’t be underutilized.”

The city and county have agreed to pay Rogers $209,000 in 2014 and increase that to $317,000 in 2015 and 2016, Jenkins said. He doesn’t expect those numbers to be revisited as the county looks at options.

“I don’t think anybody thinks ending service is even remotely an option.” Jenkins said. “The only question remaining is how are they going to fund it.”

Carr said the question for him is how the county can pay for ambulance service without a dedicated revenue stream, which the EMS district and annual fee would have provided. The county can’t pay for it out of reserve indefinitely, Carr said. He doesn’t support cutting the budget by $1 million to pay for the service.

“I’m highly uninclined to try to cut the budget by that much.” Carr said. “The people voted against it. To me, that means nobody pays for it and nobody gets it. Are the cities going to continue to run outside their boundaries? I don’t know. They could decide not to and if they should I can’t blame them. We’re not paying them for it. The people have made their decision and we have to deal with it. I don’t know what all of the ramifications are long-term.”