The cost for local rescue operations should come from the governmental agencies that have already bilked the Oregon public. It's called thievery, and it's especially rampant in the N.E. United States, left coast, and Pacific Northwest where liberals abound.
The first place politicians will look when they conspire to raise your taxes after already raising your sales tax, income tax, and property taxes again this year, is to then gauge the tourist, visitor, businessperson. That means exhorbitant taxes on hotels and rent cars, plus the additional sales taxes the state receives on recreational equipment that wouldn't be sold there if you didn't have mountains and scenery - snowmobiles, ski equipment, etc. One store owner said if you don't rent and want climbing gear, $2,000 easy. Plus all the tax on rentals. It's everywhere. Tax, tax, tax. If you add up the taxes from all the many thousands of tourists who visit Hood and the rest of Oregon, it should be far more than the $15,000 that was reported as the sheriff's budget for SAR. Get a grip Oregon. Where's all that tax money going? If the policitians say there's not enough money in the coffer for SAR, you should vote them out of office cause they sure can dole it out to people (via social programs) who sit on their butts all day and don't have their lives in immediate danger. As for the miltiary, they write it off to training, and the best training is real life, not some soldier laying in a known field somewhere pretending to be down. They'd rather have it that way and aren't complaining. It's all about money and competition with other states for tourist dollars. Start charging climbers for insurance, and viola, fewer climbers. Hood ain't the only mountain in the world.