911 board eliminates ambulance district fee
FORUM FILE PHOTO
NRCC (copy)
MARYVILLE, Mo. — The Nodaway County Emergency Services Board on Dec. 11 put an end to a two-decade-long practice that required the Nodaway County Ambulance District to pay for dispatch services.
The Emergency Services Board was created in September to oversee the revenue generated by a new 911 dispatch sales tax approved by county voters in April. That ⅜-cent sales tax will pay for dispatch services throughout the county, which are operated out of the Northwest Regional Communications Center at the R. Keith Wood Public Safety Facility in Maryville. Prior to the sales tax, the city and the county governments had been funding the dispatch center mostly through general revenue.
The NRCC handles calls for all the fire protection districts in the county, the sheriff’s office, University Police at Northwest Missouri State University and the Maryville Police and Fire departments. Those entities are not charged for the service. The NRCC also provides dispatch services for the Nodaway County Ambulance District and emergency services in Worth County. Those entities contract with the NRCC for the service.
The final year of the ambulance district’s contract is for $79,568, according to city documents. The Worth County contract began in 2022 and is for $54,000 per year. In anticipation of the creation of the new Emergency Services Board, both those contracts are set to expire at the end of this year to allow the new board to sign fresh contracts, if board members wish.
During the board’s regular meeting on Dec. 11, board members opted to end the contracted arrangement with the ambulance district and instead make it a member agency that the board is obligated to provide service for.
Several board members said they were surprised that wasn’t already the case.
Jared McQueen, director of operations at the ambulance district and a member of the Emergency Services Board, said during the Dec. 11 meeting that originally the county commission had asked the ambulance district to make a one-time payment to assist with hiring another dispatcher, but ended up continuing as an annual payment. At the time, the county and city operated separate 911 dispatch centers.
Scott Walk, who was a member of the ambulance board for about two decades before his election to the Nodaway County Commission in 2020, said during the Dec. 11 meeting that the agreement for the ambulance board to pay for dispatch services slightly predated his time on that body, but when he first began serving on the ambulance board, the contract was for $32,000 to help pay for personnel. Then the price was “basically doubled” without much explanation, he said.
The arrangement was carried over when county and city dispatch operations were consolidated in late 2019 under the NRCC, which is a city entity.
McQueen had made it known that the ambulance district intended to push to end the practice if voters approved the 911 sales tax in April.
Emergency Services Board Chair Mark Corson said during the Dec. 11 meeting that he believed the language of that ballot measure — which explicitly includes “the dispatching of … emergency ambulance service” — meant that Nodaway County voters expected the ambulance district to be a member agency with dispatch services paid for by the sales tax, not a contracted service.
The other board members agreed and unanimously approved making the ambulance district a member agency.
Jessica Rickabaugh, dispatch supervisor at the NRCC, said that the Worth County Commission has agreed to continue its contract on a month-to-month basis until the new Emergency Services Board, which is still getting on its feet, has bylaws and a process in place to approve new long-term agreements.
