LITTLE ROCK — The Sherwood City Council voted 8-0 Tuesday to appropriate $350,000 from its reserve fund to pay a settlement with its former ambulance provider, Arkansas Emergency Transport LLC.
The settlement was approved by the council April 8 in a 5-1 vote, but the source of the funding the city would use to pay it was not identified then.
Alderman Lex "Butch" Davis, who voted against the settlement, said he approved the appropriation Tuesday because it was a bill the city had committed itself to paying.
"We had no choice in the matter," he said, adding that the appropriation of the money would mean the city would have to be even more careful with its spending this year.
"Any time you have to pay out that much money, it puts a strain on the budget," he said. "We didn't plan for this."
The city has about $2 million left in its reserve, or about 10 percent of its $19,210,358 operating budget.
The settlement with Arkansas Emergency Transport came after it sued the city in federal court, arguing that the city had violated its civil rights and breached its contract by failing to provide due process when the city terminated its services without giving the company a chance to correct its purported problems.
The company was the city's ambulance provider from 1996 to October 2006. The city terminated its services mid contract, claiming that an on-duty employee had been charged with public intoxication and that the company had repeatedly provided poor service and failed to have proper equipment on hand.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 05/01/2009