How We See It: Ambulance Hearing Important For Future

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

In less than a week, officials will offer the public another important opportunity to provide feedback about possible ways to fund ambulance service in the rural areas of Benton County.

If more than a couple dozen people show up, we'll be shocked. But we hope we're shocked.

What’s The Point?

We’re skeptical voters will show up at a Benton County meeting Monday to discuss potential funding for a rural ambulance system, but they should. We hope they surprise us.

This is an issue that's been debated for several years now. The mostly city-run entities that provide ambulance service to rural areas watched as their call volumes inside and outside cities increased in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2010, the cities asked county government to start pulling more of the financial weight or develop a new mechanism for emergency medical response in rural areas.

"It's time to pony up and work your way into covering that," Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin told county leaders back then as he led the other ambulance-providing cities to back the request for county funding. Other cities had brought the issue up in prior years.

Benton County justices of the peace eventually ponied up, first agreeing to spread $100,000 among the seven city-based services as a financial token. Cities, however, estimated the continued response would require a commitment of nearly $1 million to the annual costs of maintaining and operating ambulance services. The county's payments grew until it was $300,000 in 2013 then $942,000 in 2014. The money has come from county reserves, but the Quorum Court has struggled to create a system to collect any money directly to support rural ambulance service.

The Quorum Court adopted an $85-per-household annual fee in 2013, but voters hated the idea -- and the heavyhanded adoption -- and overturned it at the ballot box. The county again coughed up nearly $1 million from reserves to keep the city-based system responding in 2014. The court's members now plan to ask voters to approve a funding mechanism. Likely candidates are (1) creating an ambulance services district with a $40-per-household annual fee or (2) a countywide levy of 0.2 mills on property taxes.

County leaders are still flummoxed about what to do. They badly want to find the new revenue that will prevent the need for cuts in other budget areas. But matching that desire against voter sentiments is pretty difficult.

County Judge Bob Clinard most recently said county residents had suggested putting both measures on the ballot. The county attorney said if both passed, the county would just collect revenue through both methods.

What's the likelihood of that? Does anyone believe county voters want both the fee and the added property tax?

And so, county officials plan their public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Benton County Courthouse, seeking a last bit of public feedback before they decide July 24 how to proceed.

Everyone Benton County resident has something at stake with the proposals, so we hope they will show up, learn about the Quorum Court's though processes and try to help fashion a solution.

But if history is any indication, they won't. They'll wait for elected officials to reach a decision, then get mad about it and show up on election day to reject whatever is on the ballot.

It's like a man with high blood pressure who eats a high-fat diet. He knows he should change his ways but he'll just keep going until the heart attack hits.

Then he'll hope someone has funded a system ready to send an ambulance.

Commentary on 07/08/2014