Being a member of the Benton County Quorum Court probably isn't too much fun nowadays.
The Quorum Court is currently in heavy discussions about ways to pay for rural ambulance service. It is currently using approximately $940,000 in county funds to pay for the service, which is provided by cities around the county. Part of the costs are being paid with $450,000 from the county's road fund.
The cost for rural ambulance services is expected to rise to about $1.1 million in 2015 and $1.2 million in 2016.
It should be pointed out that city residents also pay county taxes, so in essence, they are paying for the ambulance service twice -- through their city taxes and through their county taxes.
The county is looking for other ways to pay for the service by the end of the year, when the cities have indicated they will not provide service to rural areas without more money.
The county has always paid for the ambulance service, but the seven cities, Rogers and Siloam Springs in particular, dramatically increased their price for the services in 2014.
Earlier this year, the Quorum Court asked rural residents to pay $85 a year to cover the costs of the ambulance service. The residents balked and the measure was soundly defeated.
Now the Quorum Court is considering a $40-a-year fee to rural residents that would raise approximately $527,000 and a countywide 0.2 millage that would raise approximately $833,000.
When you look at the situation as a whole, it is far cheaper for Benton County to contract with the cities than it would be to create its own system.
Rural residents who have attended recent meetings conducted by the Quorum Court say they support the millage but not the $40 fee. They also feel the cost increases over the past two years by some of the cities are unreasonable.
Personally, I think the fee split should be more toward the other direction with rural residents paying for more of the ambulance service. After all, city residents are already paying for ambulance services and have paid for the buildings that house the vehicles.
The cities, for their part, say they have to charge the fees they are charging because they have equipment and firefighters to pay as well as buildings to maintain and utilities to cover. Up to this point, the cities have been subsidizing the rural efforts and they want compensation for it.
Bella Vista, one of the seven cities, has a very small rural area to the southeast of the city above Lake Bella Vista to which it provides rural services. The other rural areas around Bella Vista are covered by Pea Ridge to the east and Gravette to the south and west.
However, the city is preparing to build a fourth fire station south of the Highlands Gate area that it has to staff with ambulance and fire crews. The cost of that one station for new personnel is approximately $500,000. The greatest majority of the activity coming out of the new station will be the ambulance.
The point here is it isn't cheap to fund ambulance and fire stations.
Currently, Centerton, which has a volunteer fire department but no ambulance service, has a contract with Bentonville to provide ambulance services for its residents. That seems fair.
One of the complaints of the rural residents was that they helped pay for the cities' ambulance services through the sales taxes they pay by patronizing businesses in those cities, particularly the shopping districts in Rogers. However, some rural residents may live closer to the shopping areas in Springdale or Fayetteville, in which case their sales tax funds go to Washington County.
In most cases, police, fire and ambulance services are paid for with property taxes. But even if they weren't, city residents pay the same sales taxes when they go shopping that rural residents do.
When you look at this taxing situation, city residents are currently paying the ambulance services through property tax, maybe sales tax and a county contribution -- which, by the way, city residents also are contributing to through their county tax. In addition, city residents contribute to the Sheriff's Office and county road department, something they frequently don't use.
Rural residents are paying for ambulance services through the same county taxes that city residents pay and maybe sales tax.
Adding at least a $40-a-year fee to rural residents is not unreasonable and seems like a fair deal to me. You can't expect city residents to bear the brunt of the costs of rural ambulance services, which is what is occurring now.
While rural residents may not like having a fee for ambulance services, you can't have something for nothing. It's time to level the playing field for city residents.
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Throne is managing editor of The Weekly Vista.
Editorial on 07/23/2014