Nevada Governor to Bill Fossett Widow For Search

sonchat writes with news that Nevada's "Gov. Jim Gibbons intends to bill the widow of missing multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett for $687,000 the state spent in searching for the famed aviator last fall, a spokesman said." Though in some places charging for the cost of a search effort is routine, apparently in Nevada it is not.

Comments

I can understand...

[tamuct01]

...if this was some wild goosechase. I mean that if you fraudulently sent the Police, etc. looking for someone, then you should be billed for it. But if it was a legitimate missing persons/accident, etc. as it appears to be in Fossett's case, then the next of kin should not be billed for the expense.

Re:Budget smudget

[R2.0]

You are reacting to the flame-y headline. It should have read that Fosset's ESTATE would be billed. The guy had a metric fuckton of money - it's not like she's some woebegone character handling her husbands affairs alone.

Re:Budget smudget

[Arcane_Rhino]

While I think you have some legitimate points, lets not forget that, unless the state contracted outside of its normal search and rescue crews, the resources to search for the guy were already functioning and operational.

I would be curious to see how much additional expense was really accrued. The fact that the money to pay for the operation (fuel, wear and tear on equipment, salaries, etc) came from the "Search and Rescue" budget (I do not really know their specific accounting practices) rather than the maintenance, training, and personnel budgets do not mean that the tax-payer ACTUALLY incurred additional costs.

Re:Though is some places?

[ultranova]

When an actual fire occurs, they bill it to the responsible party, if any, and typically it would be covered by fire insurance.

So basically, if a fire occurs, my best bet is to not call the fire department but try to put it out myself, which of course risks having it spread and burn down half the city.

Oh, and since the insurance company wants profits, I'll end up paying more than if I just funded the fire department completely through the taxes. A lovely setup. Clearly libertarian in origin.