BENTON COUNTY — Benton County spent $100,000 on rural ambulance service with no solution in sight to the problem of cities spending their money serving county residents.
The county’s Intergovernmental Cooperation Council discussed the ambulance service issue and agreed to divide $100,000 from the county among the seven municipal governments that provide ambulance service to unincorporated areas of the county. The council, made up of the county judge and the mayors of the incorporated towns and cities in the county, works on problems and issues the governments have in common.
The seven cities divided the county money according to the percentage of calls they responded to in unincorporated areas. Bella Vista is to receive $2,777, while Bentonville receives $10,939. Gravette, which serves a large section of the west side of Benton County, will receive $22,431. Pea Ridge will receive $7,663 and Rogers $24,708. Siloam Springs is set to receive $21,987, and Springdale $9,495.
The Benton County Quorum Court approved spending the $100,000 as part of last year’s budget process. The Intergovernmental Cooperation Council adopted a resolution in October asking the county to provide the money as a gesture of good faith and an indication of the county’s commitment to resolving the problem.
Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin said the $100,000was a gesture and not much more.
“What we’re asking the county to do is show good faith,” McCaslin said. “This is nothing more than a toe in the door to say, ‘We recognize this is a county service.’”
McCaslin said the amount the county pays should “escalate” every year until it more accurately reflects the cost to the cities.
According to a report prepared for the council by a committee composed of emergency service providers, calls for service in rural areas accounted for 2 percent of Bella Vista’s budget and grew to 63 percent of Gravette’s budget.Richard McComas, Benton County’s comptroller, said the cost to the cities for rural service calls in 2010, according to the report, was $1,860,684, which is about 6.4 percent of a total reported cost for emergency medical service calls of $29,068,641.
County Judge Bob Clinard said he sees two ways to proceed. He said the county and cities can hire someone to do a study of ambulance service and make a recommendation on how best to provide it or the governmental agencies can do the study “in house” and develop their own recommendation.
“This current report doesn’t tell us how to solve the problem,” Clinard said. “It tells us what the problem is.”
Gravette Mayor Byron Warren said an additional problem for his city is the Gravette ambulance service only provides basic life support. To improve the service to the advanced life support category would require the city essentially double its salary costs for the service, he said.
The council agreed to have its existing EMS committee continue working, with a goal of developing some recommendations for the council. Clinard said ambulance service districts are one possible approach, while McCaslin said having the county subsidize the cities for the service they provide might be more cost-effective than starting a new service.
School News, Pages 14 on 05/18/2011