JERSEY COUNTY – Jersey County voters will decide next spring whether to raise a county-wide sales tax to fund the Jersey Community Hospital ambulance service.
County Board members voted unanimously on Nov. 10, 2026 to place a question on the ballot for the April 6, 2027 consolidated elections on whether to raise the Public Safety Sales Tax rate by 0.5% to support the county’s ambulance service.
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Chairman Mark Wagner noted this sales tax would be paid by visitors coming into Jersey County, not just county residents. The county could also fund the ambulance service by raising the levy on property taxes, but Wagner reiterated that board members are “totally opposed” to taking that approach.
“The County Board does not want to raise property taxes to fund the ambulance service. We are all in agreement [and] totally opposed to that,” Wagner said. “The only option we see going forward at this time is to put it on the ballot … and let the people decide.”
Wagner previously told Grafton City Council members at their Sept. 15, 2026 meeting that financial issues are threatening the ambulance service offered by Jersey Community Hospital, which serves residents across Jersey County.
“[We’re] trying to think about what we can to do help save our ambulance service, because it’s in jeopardy of going bankrupt, cutting services or doing away with it altogether unless we can somehow help support our ambulance service,” Wagner said at the time.
Kevin Zachary, CEO of Jersey Community Hospital, also said at the Grafton meeting that the hospital’s ambulance funding issues are partially being driven by changes to federal healthcare funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, noting that “JCH is primarily funded by Medicare.”
Zachary said Jersey Community Hospital consists of three entities, including the hospital itself, the clinic and the ambulance service. To cover ambulance costs that exceeded the service’s available funding, Zachary said the hospital would previously “rob Peter to pay Paul” by pulling from the hospital or clinic funds. But as the hospital itself faces federal funding hits, officials are now looking elsewhere to cover the ambulance costs.
Jersey County’s current Public Safety Sales Tax rate of 0.75% was established in 2004 and has not changed since. In 2024, over two-thirds of county voters rejected raising the tax by 0.5% to fund improvements at public safety facilities including the Jersey County Courthouse.
If the sales tax increase fails to pass, Wagner said the county would explore “any and all” options to maintain some form of ambulance service, including the potential of a volunteer ambulance service.
Would you support a 0.5% sales tax increase to keep the ambulance service running in Jersey County? Let us know in the comments section below!
