Benton County Officials Resume Ambulance Talks

— Justices of the peace will continue to consider the future of rural ambulance service at a special meeting of the Quorum Court's Public Safety Committee on Wednesday.

Patrick Carr, chairman of the committee, said he has heard a number of different options proposed, but the committee will have to dig deeper into the details of the different approaches.

What's Next

Public Safety Committee

Benton County’s Public Safety Committee will meet to discuss rural ambulance service at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Quorum Courtroom at the County Administration Building, 215 E. Central Ave. in Bentonville.

Source: Staff Report

"All of the justices of the peace have been working on it individually," said Carr, justice of the peace for District 12. "I've heard people talk about doing something with the volunteer fire departments. I've heard people say we're just going to have to keep cutting the budget. At this point, we've heard 30 different options and we're going to have to decide what we're comfortable with recommending."

Benton County has worked on a way to provide rural ambulance service for the past four years. The Quorum Court in September created an Emergency Medical Services District with an $85 annual fee to provide funding to keep the municipal ambulance services that now provide coverage in the rural areas operating as they have.

That plan was challenged by a petition drive that gathered enough signatures to force a referendum. Voters in the proposed district rejected the plan by a 2-1 margin, sending the county back to consider how to proceed. The justices of the peace had budgeted $236,000 to pay the cities through March 31, and have agreed to cut $450,000 from the Road Department to cover part of the $709,000 the cities have said they need. The justices of the peace are still looking for another $256,000 to fully fund rural ambulance service through the end of 2014.

The county has no set plan beyond this year, and that is what needs to be the focus of the committee's discussion, Carr said.

"I want everybody's opinion to be heard," Carr said. "We may not solve the problem Wednesday. It may take another meeting. But we've got to have a starting point and I think this meeting will give us that."

Kevin Harrison, justice of the peace for District 5, is working on a plan to incorporate the rural fire departments, the smaller ambulance providers that now operate and the smaller cities that might be interested in forming their own service. The county's role would be to help with some of the startup costs and then step back and let the other entities run the service, Harrison said.

"I've reached out to them," Harrison said. "I've contacted Beaver Lake and Nebco. I've talked to Gravette's fire chief and to the mayor of Decatur and I've tried to get ahold of Centerton and Lowell. I'm trying to get all these stakeholders involved."

Harrison said he doesn't want the county to be in the role of operating an ambulance service.

"The county doesn't have to be in the business, but maybe help these people get started," he said. "We can help them get the ambulances and the equipment they need or in the case of Nebco or Gravette, maybe help them financially."

Harrison said he sees the county's role limited to the financial side and using money from the county's reserves for the startup costs. He said he's favored this kind of model all through the debate over how to fund the service.

"I actually mentioned this four years ago and nobody was interested," he said. "Everybody thought the best way to go was to stay with the cities. This time I've not talked to the judge or to anybody else. The day after the election I started calling these people myself."

Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and chairman of the Finance Committee, said he doesn't know how the county will fund ambulance service beyond this year.

"There's no money coming in that we can dedicate as a revenue stream for EMS," Allen said "Whatever the Public Safety Committee comes up with, I don't think we can do anything to get a revenue stream for 2015, so we're looking at more budget cuts. Our sales tax revenue has been down so far this year. That's mostly because of the weather, but we're behind and we're going to be playing catch-up for the rest of the year. So our revenue is down and we've got to look at at least one more year of budget cuts."

NW News on 03/10/2014

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