Referred To The People By The District Board

Five-Year Local Option Levy For Ambulance Operations

Question: Shall Polk County FD impose $0.77 per $1,000 of assessed value for five years for ambulance operations beginning FY 2005-2006? This measure may cause property taxes to increase more than three percent.

Summary: The District is in need of additional funding for ambulance operation. Current tax monies do not generate adequate funds for ambulance and fire operations. The current fee for service payments from Medicare, Medicaid and other insurance has significantly decreased over the past couple of years. During this time, ambulance service costs have continued to increase as have the requests for emergency services. Originally, the ambulance service was established as a self supporting service not subsidized by fire operations tax funds. It is the desire of the Polk County Fire District No. 1 Board of Directors to be good stewards of the taxpayer’s money. In doing so, they have decided to put this information out to the citizens of the District and allow the taxpayer’s to decide if keeping our current Advanced Life Support Ambulance Service is what the voters want. We believe that the ambulance service is an extremely important asset to the community but we can no longer continue to run the service at a loss. The proposed rate will raise approximately $526,327 in 2005-2006; $541,947 in 2006-2007; $558,033 in 2007-2008; $574,599 in 2008-2009; $591,691 in 2009-2010.