At the last Select Board working session on Friday, April 4, we discussed charging Dartmouth's Fire Districts for some of the services the town currently provides at no charge. These include dispatch costs and assessing and collecting the fire district levies. The Prudential Committees from the districts will be invited to discuss this with the Select Board. Since the fire districts will probably raise their levy (your property tax)to cover these costs, the result is a tax hike for property owners. How do you feel about charging the districts for these services? It will provide revenue to the town but at the cost of higher fire district levies. There has been no discussion, of which I am aware, of the cost to the districts (or the revenue generated). Leave your thoughts in comments below.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
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2 comments:
One of the things I don't like about separate Fire Districts and Enterprise Funds is that taxpayers lose control. Any and all costs can be just passed on to the taxpayer without their say-so. This clearly could be abused to circumvent Prop 2 1/2.
In the extreme, if all services were put into an Enterprise Fund there would be no need to every ask for an override because any and all costs can just be passed on to the taxpayer, without them voting on it, even if they were ridiculous expenses and salaries.
I don't like the 3 separate Fire Districts anyway, and the fact that they are all different "prices". Maybe this is because I live in District 2 where the costs are highest for residential property, but does that mean I get a better service? I wish someone would look at the overall structure of the 3 Fire Districts and explain why things are the way they are. I know they do a great job, but they ALL do a great job, even the "cheap" ones.
The town charges the schools for similar expenses such as payroll so it should be no different for the fire districts.
I second frankg's desire to look into our town's fire district structure. There is no control or accountability, just lots of new vehicles and expense.
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