The Otho Fire Department is still looking for a way to receive ambulance funding from a voter-approved tax for emergency medical services.

The department is slated to receive $10,000, just like all of the other volunteer fire departments that provide care before an ambulance arrives.

But the department begin providing ambulance service last February, and Fire Chief Marty Smith asked the Webster County Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council Wednesday if additional funding would be available to Otho in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

“I think for your planning purposes it would just be best to move on as if you’re not a transport agency,” said Webster County Supervisor Niki Conrad, who is the chairwoman of the council.

The discussion during Wednesday’s council meeting was a briefer version of the debate that occupied the council throughout 2025.

When the Board of Supervisors scheduled the March 2025 special election on the property tax fro emergency medical services, there were three ambulance providers in the county: the Fort Dodge Fire Department, the Dayton Rescue Squad and the Southwest Webster Emergency Medical Service in Gowrie. The plan presented to the voters divides the bulk of the tax revenue between those three agencies.

The Otho Fire Department began operating its ambulances in February 2025.

Smith and other representatives of the department lobbied the council to be included as an ambulance service.

In October 2025, the council recommended going forward with the proposal that funds the ambulance units in Fort Dodge, Dayton and Gowrie. Early this month, the Board of Supervisors approved that plan.

Agreements that allow use of the tax money are now being sent to local governments throughout the county for approval.

In other business Wednesday, Conrad was reelected chairwoman of the council. Fort Dodge Fire Chief Matt Price was elected vice chairman and Barnum Mayor Cassie Dillon was elected secretary.

The council also created a subcommittee that will review requests for expenditures of more than $50,000 using EMS tax fund money. It consists of Price; Dan Hansen, director of the Dayton Rescue Squad; Dan Hanson from the Southwest Webster EMS; and Melissa Joyce, director of the Southwest WebsterEMS.

The EMS tax is 75 cents per $1,000 of taxable value. It is expected to generate about $1.6 million annually.