Watching the selectmen meeting of January 8, 2018, Brooks and Richards were again absent.
There was a vote to give Reno's pizza a license to sell booze. Morrison - yes, Fortes - yes, Caplis - abstain. (Caplis owns a home next to the pizza shop) One odd question came from selectmen Fortes to the owner of Renos pizza, "naturalization/citizenship papers in order?" Strange question from a selectmen to a man who already has a business in town, has a business license and pays taxes, sales tax, state tax, income taxes etc. I wonder if the board of health asked the same question? Perhaps master Fortes should contact the feds! What a joke.
One item of interest was discussion on Templeton ambulance receipts; seems like there may be a problem with revenue projections. Fiscal year 2017 showed ambulance generating $282,000.00 according the the fire chief. Seems there were over 100 non transport calls for the ambulance, which means there was no billing, as in no collection of dollars, only expense for sending the ambulance out.
So far, for fiscal 2018, 315 ambulance calls with 253 transports. As of December 31, 2017, there has been $155,765.00 collected. It is guesstimated that if the other six months follow the first six months, there will be $311,531.00 in collections. Again, that is only a guess as there could be fewer calls in the next six months. Of course, there could be more.
Some ambulance issues; more calls for "I have fallen and I can't get up" (my words) but these apparently are calls for assistance where there is only expense for the ambulance going out, as there is no transport and no dollars collected. Also, there are more elderly calls which involve medicare and medicaid billing. No matter what Templeton has for ambulance billing rates, medicare/medicaid only pays so much and that is that. As of April of 2018, Templeton must go to 24 hours for ALS service. The three year income projections for ambulance service was based on 700 calls per year. Templeton is averaging 500 calls per year, oops! Selectmen Caplis stated there are some tough calls coming. Perhaps selectmen should have used a lower (conservative) number for those estimates, but I guess they needed to paint a real rosy picture. Do not worry, the meals tax will fix it! Maybe Tempeton can start charging people when they get locked up in the new cell at the police station, or we can charge for tours of the new school.
the man should take cam to court -
ReplyDeleteThere was a nice man that lived at the end of South Road. The ambulance transported him to the hospital a number of times in the past year. This means that some of the money the ambulance received came from transporting him. In this instance, they can't depend on funds from his account because he passed last month. I do not think our community is big enough to support this seeing we have so many other issues that have not been dealt with. With the revenue we have it will be hard to deal with problems that arise today, especially since problems from the past constantly haunt us.
DeleteI personally felt offended when Cameron asked the gentleman from Renos about his naturalization status. It felt biased. I dont know, maybe Cam has asked every other business owner the same question, but I dont remember that happening.
DeleteSeriously though, we dont even ask this question of our town officials and members of boards and committees.
I think we have a Trump minion on the Templeton selectboard! Diane & Julie are always absent when controversial issues are on the agenda.
DeleteBack to the ambulance charges, you would not believe the amount of calls for, nausea, sore knee, headache, etc.
ReplyDeleteThose calls either should not be visited or require a mandatory minimum charge. There is no need to send a truck and a few guys on some of these ridiculous calls I hear on a weekly basis. Be firm, you call you pay.
i think you guys are looking at the ambulance the wrong way . with lack of firefighters these days to respond to calls during the day having an ambulance is putting firefighters in the station to also respond to fire calls ! your making money to help with the cost of firefighters ! sooner than later there will be no call firefighters due to the comment it takes to become a firefighter and these guys are doing there training at very little cost to the town ! dont expect that in the near future ! time away from your family these days guys need to be paid!!!
ReplyDelete