So the Templeton fire chief says the fire department office will be closed on some days in reaction to possible cuts in town budget, he will be in the ambulance as a responder to calls. Okay, say the chief rides the ambulance with a patient, to the hospital; checking in, doing paper work etc, there is a large fire in Templeton, how will the chief respond to that?

What about the billing, why is the fire chief doing billing, I mean the sewer commissioners were told the Town has a Town Collector so all Town collections should be done there, why not have ambulance billing done there as well, if you are going to bill additionally for a town service.

I looked at Ashburnham, MA, costing of accountant services: $85,040.00 and then at Templeton costing of accountant services: $193,470.00 ($28,000.00 for audit expense included)

Can the case be made for Templeton to do business in a different way resulting in better use of tax dollars?

If Templeton officials are truly interested in getting more out of taxpayer dollars, perhaps Templeton should be looking at moving it's dispatch service to a scenario like the Town of Hubbardston has done. There are many things that could be done to provide same services, free up dollars for education and road repair; leaders just need to be willing to take those issues on. Again, put away heart strings, friends, family, etc; it really comes down to the bottom line / $$$

(from July 2018)
Town of Warren to join Rutland dispatch center

HUBBARDSTON — Town officials have ap­­proved the Rutland Reg­ional Emergency Com­munication Center’s plan to add the town of Warren to the center, which will save Hubbard­ston thousands of dollars.

Currently, the Com­munication Center serves Barre, Oakham, Rutland and Hubbardston.

However, it will expand to include Warren starting in January, which will save Hubbardston roughly $18,000 a year. Currently, the town spends $134,241 on dispatch, but after the savings begin the town will spend $116,502.

“There are no known drawbacks to adding Warren,” Director of Communications Michael Moriarty said. “There won’t be any change in service to any of the towns, and Hubbardston will have the same service.”

In order to address the additional calls, the Communication Center is hiring additional dispatchers in order to assure no change in service with the addition of Warren.

“We are happy to be realizing long-term savings due to the addition of Warren into RECC,” Board of Selectmen Chairman Dan Galante said. “We feel as though we vetted it thoroughly and asked all of the necessary questions to make sure the citizens of Hubbardston are unaffected by this merger.”

Hubbardston was the last town to approve Warren into the center.

With Warren added, the current capacity of the facility will be maxed out, but the center is still looking at options to allow future expansions that could save the towns even more money.

“We are looking at new locations to continue to grow,” Moriarty said. “The building next door to us actually, if we move into that
we will be able to hold even more towns.”

With each town that is added to the center, there will be more overall savings for the towns already participating.

The Communications Center has also found additional savings in switching to Swift 911, swapping out Code Red, for recorded mass emergency calls. Swift 911 offers the same townwide calling services that CodeRed does, for about $7,000 less to the cost of each town using the center.

With Swift 911, the town is able to make wide-ranging calls for a number of scenarios, notably emergencies like floods or serious crime, but Swift 911 will also allow people to sign up for specific call lists, so they can be notified about non-emergencies like town meetings as well.