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July 7, 2006
NEXT ON AGENDA Can tax hike be used for new ambulance purchases?
By PHILLIP GOMEZ
At the end of May, the town approved the expenditure of $61,760 for an SUV command vehicle and $220,998 for a water tender. Fire-Rescue Chief Scott Lewis indicated that ambulance replacements will be next on the town board's agenda - and they won't be long in coming. Trips to Las Vegas for patient hospital care not available at Desert View Regional Medical Center continue to rack up mileage on the town's rescue vehicles, Lewis said, which means their early retirement from service. The expense caused a brief stir at the town board meeting June 27, when board member Ron Johnson protested the continual purchasing of new ambulances. "Sometimes people might even fix a vehicle," he said sarcastically. "We are Pahrump. We're not Clark County, we're not New York. I think we as a town need to wax conservative somewhat ... I certainly want people to have nice equipment. I'd like to have a new Mercedes, myself." But Town Manager Dave Richards, replying to Johnson, said, "We do our best to spend our funds as wisely as possible. We change tires, transmissions ... We do whatever we can to keep those ambulances on the road. We sell them only when they're wasted. "We will not bring a new recommendation to you to buy new (vehicles) unless we have to." Another perennial budget problem for fire-rescue is the number of patients who die on the way to Las Vegas hospitals, or shortly afterwards, and indigents - both of whom often don't pay for their rides. In the three-month period March through May, for example, the ambulance service collected less than half the $1,037,532 in net billable ambulance charges owed the town. Some $13,338 was written off as bad debt from subsequent deaths and hardship cases, according to a recent ambulance report. The balance outstanding for the three-month period is $558,454. Yet another issue is construction costs. Since impact fees paid by developers for new rooftops in Pahrump go toward new fire stations, developers could argue that they were being taxed twice for the same purpose. That would give them legal grounds to challenge the impact fees in court, something the town doesn't want to chance. |
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