By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

POLAND – Officials here are wondering what happened to years’ worth of Rescue Service billing records.

Selectman Wendy Sanborn says she has asked the Maine Attorney General’s Office for guidance after hearing the town’s auditor caution of “red flags” in connection to the records.

Fire Chief Willie Rice said that he raised the issue shortly after coming to town in October 2003 to head up the Fire Department and Rescue Service. Until then, the units were separate and headed by others.

Rice said his major concern was that the town had been inconsistent in billing for rescue services, which include ambulance runs. Sometimes, the town wouldn’t press people to pay their bills, he said, and that unofficial policy had become known around town.

“You can’t go after some people and not others,” he said Wednesday.

Rice didn’t know how much money might be at stake in connection with the missing billing documents, but said it could involve records from as many as eight years prior to 2003.

Last year, the Rescue Service generated about $82,000, Rice said.

Town Manager Richard Chick said Tuesday that he also was aware of the problem with records.

“We believe that we have some incomplete billing records,” he said. He said he thinks the records cover between three and four years, and would date back to about 2000.

The Rescue Service billing records were processed in-house until about 2004, Chick said. Since the change to a third-party system that year, there haven’t been problems, he added.

Chief Rice said just having the records unavailable can be troublesome. Insurance companies, lawyers and others often call for copies of Rescue Service billing records, he noted. The department is obligated to keep them for seven years in the case of someone over 21, and longer in the case of younger people.

Chick said it wasn’t clear whether the town was losing money as a result of the incomplete – Sanborn called them “missing” – records.

He did say, however, that since the change made in 2004 the town has had an easier time of tracking and receiving payment for Rescue Service bills.

Chick and Sanborn both said they expect the Board of Selectmen to take up the issue at a future meeting.

Neither thought there was any wrongdoing in connection with the incomplete or missing records, but each added that they had more questions than answers.