Benton County Adopts Voluntary Ambulance Tax

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County's justices of the peace created a voluntary ambulance tax Thursday as they continue seeking ways to pay for ambulance service in rural areas.

The Quorum Court approved 12-2 a 2-mill voluntary tax to be placed on residents' property tax statements. Barry Moehring, justice of the peace for district 15, and Brent Meyers, justice of the peace for District 14, voted against the voluntary tax.

Moehring said he was concerned people wouldn't understand the tax was voluntary. He said he looked at other voluntary taxes on property tax statement, for roads and the Historical Preservation Commission, and found of 147,000 parcels in the county, 9,312 property owners paid the road tax and 9,307 paid the Historical Commission tax. He said the nearly identical numbers raise a concern those people didn't understand the taxes were voluntary.

"My fear is that we have a lot of people coming in and paying their taxes without knowing what they're paying," Moehring said. "My fear is that we will create more confusion by doing this."

Moehring asked, if the measure passed, the county look at providing more information on statements.

Meyers said he voted against the tax because he didn't want the county to rely on an uncertain source of revenue to pay for an ongoing service.

Kurt Moore, justice of the peace for District 13, said the county will have the information on the money raised before budgeting.

"We would know during budget how much is coming in because it's due in October," Moore said.

The county is looking for ways to pay for rural ambulance service in 2014 and beyond. The justices of the peace in September created an emergency medical services district for the unincorporated areas to make service available. Voters defeated the measure with 1,134 votes in favor and 2,346 against.

The county budgeted $950,000 to pay the cities for ambulance service in 2014. When the election was scheduled, the Quorum Court reduced that to $236,000 to the cities through March, leaving the Quorum Court to find another $709,000.

The Finance Committee voted last week to send the voluntary tax to the Quorum Court for consideration. A similar road tax of 2 mills netted about $217,000 last year.

County Judge Bob Clinard said he'll contact Patrick Carr, justice of the peace for District 12 and chairman of the Public Safety Committee, today about setting up a committee meeting to discuss ambulance service after 2014.

The Quorum Court also approved planning and development regulations and fees.

After a brief discussion, the Quorum Court tabled spending $20,000 to replace the fire alarm system in the County Administration Building. Joel Jones, justice of the peace for District 7, said he wanted to transfer money to pay for the system from a line item for professional services in the budget.

Sarah Daniels, comptroller, said that budget line had enough money in it to pay for the fire system. Daniels said the budget line is included in the budget annually and seldom used.