Last night, at the Pre Town meeting, the Town Administrator made the point I have been making for a long time, Ambulance service is going to cost the Town (taxpayers) more and more. The point was made by stating that full time people ( fire fighter/EMS-paramedics are needed this year and next and the next until Templeton can cover ALS ambulance service 24/7 and this has/is not going to work with on call people and the T/A further stated he would let the fire chief speak on this at Town Meeting. So, seems I was correct on saying over the years that the Ambulance service was going to cost more and more. Also stated at the meeting was that there are projections that ambulance billing receipts will eventually (in 3 years or more) begin to accumulate in sufficient numbers to cover the costs or most of it. One point was made that medicare/medicaid and insurance companies can have an effect on this if they begin to limit how much of those ambulance fees they will cover. Meaning that whom ever uses an ambulance will be responsible for the not covered costs and if they cannot pay,  those dollars will most likely be written off as uncontrollable and those dollars lost, unless some sort of collection process is followed with associated costs.

what this means is you either vote for government growth or you probably lose town ambulance service completely. The kicker is, there is still a 100 thousand dollar deficit built into the spending plan you will be asked to support. Advisory Committee voted to recommend for with an explanation to Town Meeting and allow voters to decide.

posted by Jeff Bennett