$13K is probably half the salary of the local constabulary, as well as the rent for the office.

You should pitch in.

Think, then post.

When it comes to distinguishing rural from urban, researchers and policymakers employ a dizzying array of definitions. There are at present the more than two dozen rural definitions currently used by Federal agencies and they are the experts. For the 1910 Census, rural meant open countryside and any place with fewer than 2,500 people. Over the same time period, thresholds for some USDA rural development programs were adjusted upward. For example, the Rural Housing Program began in 1949, serving communities with fewer than 2,500 people, but it now sets eligibility at less than 20,000 people.

So Mr. Moose exactly what does your definition of rural involve? Depending on what you use for the boundary choice and population threshold, the share of the U.S. population defined as rural and its socioeconomic characteristics can vary widely. In 2000, 21 percent of the U.S. population was designated rural using the Census Bureau’s land-use definition (outside urban areas of 2,500 or more people), compared with 17 percent for economically based nonmetro areas (outside metro areas of 50,000 or more). Alternative definitions increase that range to 49 percent rural.

So lets do the analysis… give me your specific definition of rural.

I get better service from the pooled functions than I do from the standalone ones… but my example is just one person's opinion.

The LGA reductions are a part of this, but a loss of thousands of dollars is certainly enough to lose personnel.

And let's not go down the road of "pay your own taxes for your own services" road. Unless, of course, we are all willing to educate our own kids, pay for our own emergency services, pave our own roads, hire our own air traffic controllers when we fly, and so on.

Would everyone enjoy having other people's taxes pay for their own local services? Sure.