The Department of Public Safety is tentatively examining whether to charge lost skiers for expensive search and rescue efforts, an idea which surfaced during Statehouse testimony from the department’s commissioner, Keith Flynn.
While outlining special budget requests to the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Flynn was asked by Rep. Kathleen Keenan, D-St. Albans, whether the department currently charges for search and rescue efforts, to which he answered no.
Vermont State Police director Col. Tom L’Esperance added, “We’ve debated that back and forth, and the potential that someone doesn’t call 911 because they think they’re going to be charged, and that person dies in the woods, you can’t really put a dollar figure on that.”
He added that Killington ski resort especially has faced problems with several lost skiers recently. State police are discussing with the resort who should be financially responsible for lost skiers, some of whom choose to take risky off-trail routes.
“We don’t want to risk that person, out-of-bound skiing, a kid who says, ‘I don’t want to call because I’m going to get fined hundreds of thousands of dollars,’ or hundreds of dollars, or what have you,” said L’Esperance. “There is a debate to be had. … It drains our resources.”
On Wednesday, WCAX reported that a recent rash of lost skiers at Killington Mountain is draining state police resources. WCAX also reported that around 19 skiers in the past three days alone have asked for help.
After the meeting, Keenan said that those who consciously take risks by venturing into dangerous or unknown terrain should pay for the consequences if they get lost, rather than make taxpayers foot the bill.
Flynn didn’t immediately have figures on how much search and rescue missions can cost, nor on how much people could potentially be charged.
He emphasized that the discussion on charging lost or stranded people remained tentative at this point. He said he hoped instead that educating people about risks to avoid would be sufficient.
“There are a lot of reasons not to do that [charge the lost],” said Flynn. “We want to certainly encourage tourism. … We’re going to look at the education piece first before we go to the charging piece.”
“At this point, we’re really looking at the educational piece, just trying to make sure we’re doing what we can to educate people, to use our trail systems, our skiing areas responsibly,” said Flynn.
While Flynn is very hesitant to go down the path of charging for rescue efforts — he calls it a path of last resort — he said the state police have had legal authority to do so for years.
Rep. Bob Helm, R/D-Fair Haven, said: “Kids, they come up from down country, they ski on Killington, they jump onto the fresh snow and go out and get lost; I still think we ought to charge them.”
To which L’Esperance quickly responded, “I’d love to, I’d absolutely love to, if we could pull it off.”
Flynn summed it up: “It’s an interesting position for us, because we don’t want to discourage people from calling, but on the other hand, we want to make sure that we can afford to do this as a state.”
At the same budget adjustment meeting, Flynn requested $909,000 more in total for his department, chalking it up to a replacement for mobile computers used in police cars, increased gas prices, and the repair of a Williston phone network.
Flynn also said that creating a third shift for the state police, from about 2 to 7 a.m., would not solve the force’s chronic overtime pay woes. Overtime costs at the department came to $3 million this year.
