.
Our wallets are all feeling the sting of inflation, be it at the grocery store or the gas pump… but after receiving the monthly newsletter from our little rural town the other day? I had a serious WTF moment.
.
.
A bill that jumps from $50,000 a year to $65,000 a month is the very definition of insane. Increase aside, how is it even legal to break the existing contract and give the town no time to find alternative service?
😠
.
River's world..... 
That’s gotta be a typo. I did the arithmetic twice because I couldn’t believe it. I thought $2.68 for a dozen eggs was insane but “substantial” is far too kind a word for this.
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Sadly it’s not. They’re having a town meeting about it next week.
https://www.sunjournal.com/2022/12/05/maines-emergency-medical-services-at-breaking-point-commission-says-in-final-report/
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Give ’em Hell, townies. I could see an adjustment for unexpected fuel prices, but not that much. And, as you pointed out, jumping ship on a binding contract, especially as an essential public service provider, and without providing notice, is flat out wrong. Those guys are going to have a fine time selling that line of shit.
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From what I understand it’s happening in a lot of small Maine towns.
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We don’t have that issue here because almost all our services are administered by the town, with the exception of gas, electricity and sewer. there may be a tax increase in our future, but nothing like that.
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We just got a notice of property reevaluation. I’m not looking forward to that….
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YOWSA! That sounds like a dire situation.
My advice: Stay off ladders, away from knives, and don’t play with matches until some reasonable resolution is reached!
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I’m fine with that. It’s the husband I worry about…
😉
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Show him the math. Marines understand cold hard numbers.
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Property evaluation = property tax increase. In Florida we have homestead. No matter what the property evaluation is, if you reside in the same home, they can only increase the property tax 3%. So this year mine went from $800 a year to $824, even they my reevaluation tripled the value of my house. Here is the catch: if I sell the house, the new owners will get the adjusted tax based on the new property value. In the case of my house, their new property tax will be MUCH more (think x 3) than my current tax.
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Maine has a homestead exemption as well but it’s only for $25,000.
$824 a year? We pay more than that just for the barn. And they don’t even know it’s a man cave now.
🥴
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We have that as well. The Homestead exception is for $50k, and vets get another $5k. The annual 3% cap is in addition to that.
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Nice.
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It’s not, but because the ambulance service is probably thinking your town has no other choice it’s demanding the increase. This is just fucking insane!
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Everything goes up, I get that. But the scale of this increase is literally unbelievable.
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I will calmly ask how much territory this ambulance serves, how many employees does it have, and do they do EMT services as well as transportation? Even if it is just one guy running emergency transport with one vehicle I can see him asking for more per year that $50,000/year which sounds mighty cheap. But he will have to have quite the list of expenses and needs to justify the monthly asking price.
This demand sounds like capitalism gone berserk.
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The town is about 40 square miles with roughly 3,500 people. The company does provide EMT service but I don’t know how many are employed. Any way you look at it it’s a crazy increase.
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Greed. Everyone is suffering from it right now. It is more pandemic than Govid.
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It’s not confined to Maine. Here they got a nice raise, and my copay went from $250 to $700
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Yikes. Our monthly electric bills are going up by 50% starting this month. It’s all crazy!
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🤬
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That’s obscene!
I recently blogged about my electric bill increasing 10x. I was going to switch from an electric space heater back to the gas wall heater but it turns out those rates have tripled.
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Our electric is going up by 50% starting this month. Not looking forward to that.
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My electric bill put me in total shock… $247 for ONE month. It’s usually atound $27.
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Damn. Ours will go from $200 to $300… never had a $27 bill in my life.
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Very hard to push the ‘Like’ button on this one.
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I agree.
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The system needs to change clearly. But noone has been investing in finding alternatives. Maybe they should. And maybe we all need to look at what we can give up to fuck the system over like it’s been fucking us.
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While I’ve never needed ambulance service, I do take for granted that it will always be there if I do.
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That’s so absurd, it must be a misprint?
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Unfortunately, no. It’s not.
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Good to know. If it actually happens, let me know. I’m going to use it as the basis for a HUGE raise request at work.
Oh, wait. I work in public education. Never mind.
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Ha! Good luck with that.
Our town is currently in negotiations with surrounding areas to share an ambulance. How sad is that?
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Here’s hoping you never need it.
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Wow! Getting paid more per month then a whole year! That would be quite the feat.
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I just don’t see how it’s legal to break the contract.
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This could be a great opportunity for veterinarians looking to branch out and see new patients.
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I do have bunion issues, and the neighbors have a visiting farrier.
Hmm…
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We’ve had a couple local hospitals shut down, which created rising costs for ambulance services because they had to start trucking patients farther away. But, that’s just too much of a leap being asked for there.
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It’s an insane increase. And my electric bill just jumped over 60%. WTH?
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Right there with you. I got the electric/natural gas bill yesterday, and I’m still in amazement. Highest I’ve ever seen.
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Same here. Ours went from $185 to $301… it’s nuts.
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😱
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I hope that is a typo, unless the Ambulance is also offering Uber services now.
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Sadly it’s not. Many rural towns in Maine are experiencing this problem…
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Very sad.
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