Is implementation of a new countywide property tax in Benton County a way to pay for rural ambulance service, or is it solely a way to subsidize cities that make ambulance runs outside of their boundaries?
Those questions may sound similar, but they're not. The way one answers could have a lasting impact on ambulance service in a portion of Benton County where residents have taken care of their own emergency medical needs since 2010.
What’s The Point?
A new property tax millage approved by Benton County voters last month isn’t designed to support a rural emergency medical service district.
The NorthEast Benton County Emergency Medical District is a bit of a lone wolf in a county covered mostly by municipal ambulance services. Last month, voters across the county approved a 0.2-mill property tax expected to raise nearly $1 million in 2015 for subsidies to ambulance services in Bentonville, Rogers, Siloam Springs, Springdale, Bella Vista, Gravette and Pea Ridge.
Officials in the larger cities years ago told Benton County officials they needed county funding if they were to continue ambulance responses to rural areas. Other options were deemed too expensive, and it took until last month's vote for the county to find a funding mechanism the public found agreeable.
With that funding in place, the county will make payments to the seven cities in 2015 to keep ambulances rolling in rural areas -- except in the NorthEast Benton County Emergency Services District, or NEBCO.
In that district, residents pay a $100 annual fee to support their ambulance system. County leaders have praised the people of the district for taking charge of their own destiny, for doing the work necessary to meet their own emergency medical demands.
And, oh yeah, NEBCO won't get a dime of the revenue from the new countywide ambulance millage.
Understandably, that seems like a head-scratcher to folks in that area. What's right, they ask, about funneling all the new money toward ambulance coverage of rural areas in which people haven't lifted a finger to take care of themselves? But even accepting that, what's right about excluding the one rural group that's behaved responsibly toward meeting its ambulance needs?
Well, the short answer, according to some county leaders, comes to this: Last month's vote and all the debate leading up to it were focused on finding revenue to meet the cities' financial needs if, and only if, they agreed to continue responding to areas outside their municipal limits.
NEBCO doesn't generally respond to calls outside its service area, and didn't make too much of a fuss over the potential funding until, well, the tax actually passed. Now, to add insult to non-emergency injury, consider this: Property owners within the NEBCO district will pay the new property tax to support rural ambulance service, but as it stands, won't benefit from it where they're most likely to need an ambulance -- in their home district.
It's not like Benton County is suddenly flush with cash. The new tax is close to a break-even arrangement in paying the seven cities, but still falls a bit short.
If Benton County officials hope to see other emergency service districts form in rural areas -- and they say they that's a goal -- doing so can't be the equivalent of moving a fire truck's supply hose from a full pond to a dry well. Nevertheless, last month's vote was about preserving ambulance service in areas served by the municipalities. County leaders will have to develop an alternate plan if they want a mechanism that rewards development of self-sustaining emergency services districts.
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Editor's note: This editorial was published in the daily newspapers of Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014.
Editorial on 12/03/2014