That's how it worked in my hometown, but I don't think the bill was 2k as it was essentially ran by the county. Everything was basically either payed for by do

That's how it worked in my hometown, but I don't think the bill was 2k as it was essentially ran by the county. Everything was basically either payed for by donations from a local business or funded by fundraising. Primarily because the county didn't want to have a tax to run the system properly. Same thing happened with my hometown's fire department. Though in that case you could effectively buy fire insurance from the county (and of course, some people decided not to buy that insurance). Both are a bad way to run critical services, especially since my hometown was surrounded by a lot of farm and state owned land where lightning strikes causing a fire wasn't uncommon. I don't have a big issue with the volunteer portion of it, it was a small town which the county would otherwise not want to service. But the funding portion was just bad. Fire, famously, spreads. And giving people the ability to opt out is dumb because it makes a big problem if a fire starts on their property and spreads to someone else's.