The subject comes about as a result of a discussion in another thread.
How realistic is it to have a national, or even regional, rescue plan?
Take the incidence of a deer being hit in a remote area, such as between Valemount and Blue River, BC.
Those two villages have a total of 800 people in them. One can assume 2.3 people/household, meaning roughly 350 households.
Assuming their tax rates are what people pay in big cities, say 4500/year, that is a maximum of $1,575,000 available for roads, other infrastructure, police, fire, ambulance, public works, garbage pickup, water treatment, sewage and ancillary municipal services.
A 4x4 truck, which you need in these areas, and they need to be a 3/4 ton or 1 ton, cost a minimum of $40,000. I priced these out using my postal code as T8N0B9 when asked.
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They need to be equipped with winches, roll bars and radios. The personal need firearms and your medical supply kit. Now, a moose gets hit, so do you think one person can load it?
Ooopss... now we need to increase our budget because we will call one of the other personal in on overtime. Oh, and we need gas to feed the trucks. And maintenance, because they will be spending a lot of time off road or on poor roads. We are at $250,000 without blinking an eye, because we have not included employee benefits yet, which run about 22% if your a government employee on defined pensions.
So, 50,000 x1.22 = 61000/per employee. We know we need 5 to fullfil that one position. Darn, just that is 305,000 dollars. Our original budget is shot to hell already.
The truck will need to be replaced every 3 years or 100,000 miles.
So, truck cost (at the very, very low end) with equipment, on a fleet deal, is 40,000. Assume a residual value of 15,000 after being beat up for 3 years, is a net cost of 25,000/3= 8333/ year.
Gas to operate assuming 33333 miles per year assuming 15 miles/gallon at 4.00/ gallon (it's actually higher in Canada, but let's go with that) = 8900 for gas. Don't forget when it is -30 those trucks will have to idle a lot to keep them running.
You better factor in maintenance at 15% of cost = 6000 per year.
So far we have:
People = 305,000
Vehicle costs = 23,233
Office costs? = 15,000
Total about 340,000/ year.
That would absorb 21% of an already small municipal budget.
Back to our 800 people paying big city level of taxes. Of the 1.575 million, that is paying for all their current services (not at cadillac levels I can assure you, I have been there), how many do you think can afford a 21% increase in their taxes?
Where is this money suppose to come from? What services should they give up? Policing? Fire? Water?
BTW, Valemont property tax revenue for 2014 budget is 620,000. Blue River will be less (could not find it online). So my 1.575 million is way too high. It would probably be closer to 900,000.
Does anyone really think such a plan is workable, considering those two village would be responsible for 10's of thousands of square miles? Because it was exactly that area that I had to dispatch that deer.
Does anyone really think those two communities can afford over a 1/3 of their property taxes going to fulfill one new service such as a wild animal rescue service?
I see no way how anyone could suggest it is realistic. Just saying, "We need to find a way" is not good enough. The answer of HOW needs to be answered if it should even be contemplated.
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