With the passing of the emergency medical services vote in March, the Webster County EMS Advisory Council is now working to put together the formal 2026 fiscal year budget.

“Our budget process is still in the creation phase,” said Fort Dodge Fire Chief Matt Price. “We are currently working with the supervisors, auditor, our Advisory Council, and the county’s financial department on how everything will flow.”

The voters approved a levy of 75 cents per $1,000 of taxable value to pay for EMS. That revenue will be gathered for the first time with the fall tax collections. According to Price, that money will go into the EMS trust fund, similar to the E911 or emergency management budgets.

“There is currently a line item being created for the 2026 fiscal year county budget,” said Price.

Since the EMS measure was approved by Webster County voters, Senate File 42, a bill to expand EMS funding in Iowa, was passed by the legislature and signed into law. This legislation allows counties to use EMS trust fund dollars to cover salaries and wages of emergency medical care providers. Previously these funds were limited to certain operational costs. The bill received unanimous support in both chambers of the Iowa Legislature before being signed into law.

“The new addition to 422.D is a welcome one,” said Price. “There have been many questions over the last couple of years questioning whether the tax monies could be used for wages and this clears it up. In 2022, the Iowa Attorney General wrote a letter stating that the monies could be used for wages, but this clears it up once and for all.”

The Advisory Council is also discussing the addition of the Otho Fire Department as a provisional basic life saving transport service. Otho recently began transporting patients. According to Price, if and when Otho’s transport service is added to the budget, tax revenue from other areas will be redistributed.

“Overall, I think we as a council are extremely thankful for the overwhelming support from the community,” said Price. “Our next steps are all the little details of how things will work and be distributed. I think I can say from our group that we’d like to have our plan worked through and ready to execute by fall, before any money begins to come in.”