WESTMINSTER, Vt. - At town meeting on Saturday, officials will be ready to discuss nearly every town cost residents want to scrutinize except one - ambulance service.
"If we had some options, some place to go... it would be worth a discussion," Selectman Paul Harlow said. "We really don't have anything to discuss."
Although the town puts its ambulance contract out for bid on an annual basis, each year the name on that contract remains the same.
LeFevre Ambulance Service is the only game in town for areas immediately north of Putney. LeFevre serves Westminster, Rockingham and five other communities and, while few complain about the service, the cost is becoming an issue.
Now the selectboard is preparing to sign another year-long contract with LeFevre for $55,433 to begin July 1. The contract amount is a modest 5 percent increase over this year, but as selectmen discovered during a joint meeting with Putney and Dummerston several weeks ago, Westminster taxpayers are paying over twice as much per capita as their neighbors to the south.
Putney and Dummerston both pay a flat per capita fee of $7.50 per resident to its provider, Rescue Inc., a non-profit organization in Brattleboro. Although Executive Director David Dunn said that amount is scheduled to increase to $10 per person next year, the amount does not begin to approach Westminster's rate of $17.27 per resident or $21.45 per person in Rockingham.
Westminster officials said they would consider Rescue Inc., but the organization does not provide service north of Putney. Harlow and Town Manager Glenn Smith said they have looked at other possibilities in the past, even studying a partnership with Walpole several years ago. But those efforts yielded no workable solution and no competitors emerged.
"We're really behind the eight-ball in that respect," Harlow said.
Dunn said a market as small as Westminster could not expect to support two ambulance providers. Even in Brattleboro, he said, the only alternatives to Rescue Inc. are niche competitors that might, for example, provide transport from nursing homes or specific areas of town.
Rockingham Municipal Manager Shane O'Keefe said the expense concerns him, but is not as significant an issue as in Westminster. Although Rockingham expects to pay the most per resident of the seven towns LeFevre serves, its per call cost is comparatively less. With more calls per resident, Rockingham gets more bang for its buck.
According to O'Keefe's figures, if Rockingham has the same number of calls it had in 2004, the town will pay $126.79 per call this year. Only North Walpole would have a cheaper per call cost at $89.73. By that same calculation, Westminster will pay twice what Rockingham pays at $261.48 per call.
But even by that analysis, Rescue Inc. towns pay far less. Dunn said, not including Brattleboro, the eight towns his organization serves pay an average of $64 per call. With Brattleboro included, that number drops to $38 per call.
Gerald LeFevre, LeFevre's owner, said he preferred to discuss matters directly with town officials and would not talk about specific costs.
He said the disparity between each of his contracts with the towns comes from a formula he is gradually revising to be more like Rescue Inc.'s per capita price setting.
LeFevre would not discuss the details of the formula.
LeFevre said, as a for-profit company, he cannot operate at the same low-cost as Rescue inc., which receives donations to supplement operation costs.
But, he said his prices are fair. LeFevre said he operates at the most "reasonable price I can" and would continue to keep the cost to taxpayers at the lowest price possible, whether or not he had competition.
"I have to look at myself in the mirror when I shave and ask whether I shafted anybody or not," he said. "I'd like to say I don't."