Buchanan County Commissioners will ask voters to approve another sales tax increase in November, this time to fund a county-run ambulance service.

Presiding Commissioner R. T. Turner says the ballot question will ask for a quarter-cent increase in the county sales tax, with a ten-year sunset clause.

Commissioners decided to try to buy Heartland’s ambulance service. The hospital has announced it was losing a million dollars a year on its service, and decided to quit offering it by next year.

Turner says the commission opted to follow the recommendation of the CARE committee appointed to study the issue shortly after Heartland’s announcement. Other possibilities were to create an ambulance district, or to hire an outside contractor to provide the service.

“We had probably four thousand people sign a petition that had a one-half percent sales tax on it,” Turner said in an interview, “and we’ve come down from the half we could have placed on the ballot.”

“A quarter cent we feel is more realistic to provide the service.”

Members of the CARE committee will meet this week, to determine how many of them want to stay on to form a new committee to campaign in favor of the ballot measure.

At St Joe Post on Monday, our poll asked users what they thought. By Wednesday morning, 55% said they would vote YES, and 45% said NO. You can weigh in here.